


Like Magic

by evenso



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, F/F, Gen, Human Castiel, M/M, Magic, Magic and Science, Original Character(s), POV Minor Character, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, Science, Snark, Spells & Enchantments, Talking, making characters say things I think they need to say, minor characters getting some love, random historical facts, random scientific facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:08:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 49,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evenso/pseuds/evenso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of the angels, Dean turns to a reluctant witch to help save Sam, but her solution for reversing the damage isn't going to be easy to carry out.  Pain and blood Winchesters can deal with, but cooperation?  Communication?  Sam's doomed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean

Dean sits in a pew and listens to the silence of Cas not answering, and then he thinks, okay. Out of options. It’s a stupid, dangerous chance to take, and he knows it, but he’s got no choice. He’s going to have to beg for angel help. He opens his mouth - and his phone rings. He hustles out of the chapel, avoiding a few faintly dirty looks.

“Hey, Kevin. Tell me you got something I can use.”

“Um, I think maybe some-one. I found this, I dunno, weird address book thing, from like the ’50’s. It’s got all kinds of people who can do things, like see the future, move stuff, and I figure they’re mostly all dead now. But there’s one for a witch, and they can live a long time, right...”

“Right...”

“Here, I’ll read it: ‘Alice Young: hereditary witch. Very powerful healer. Deep knowledge of spells and demonology, extensive resources. Highly intelligent. Ruthless, but will hold to a bargain if you can strike one. LAST RESORT.’ And it’s circled in red.”

Okay, so he’ll be careful. But it sounds like she could legitimately help, and one little witch is nothing to some of the things he’s faced down in the past. Definitely nothing to a random angel with a grudge, which is the only other shot he’s got. If this was ever a time to go to the last resort, this is it.

“But the address we’ve got for her is from the ’50’s?”

“Well, yeah, but I looked her up and she’s still listed there. It’s seven hours from where you are. 127 Girard Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut.”

“You found her just like that? How?”

“Online phone book and google maps. She’s not exactly covering her tracks.”

“Huh. Probably too old to be tech-savvy. Okay, Kevin, thanks.”

“Wait-”

He doesn’t. Dean hangs up with a click, already moving in the direction of the parking lot. He’s got to see how much time he can shave off those seven hours.

****************************

Right outside Hartford, Dean stops at a gas station. Tops up the tank, takes a piss, tries to get his head together. What’s he gonna do if this chick doesn’t want to help? How’s he going to convince her? He can’t think of anything except: she’d fucking better. He pays inside, the only customer in the grayish dawn light. The coffee’s probably fresh, but he decides against more. He’s been guzzling it all night, trying to keep sharp, and his hands are starting to shake.

Rule number one about witches is they don’t look like witches; they’re just as likely to be baking cookies as they are standing over bubbling cauldrons. Don’t expect anything from them and you won’t be surprised. Still... this is weird. It’s just so... obvious.

It’s an old neighborhood. Big trees, houses with those pointy roofs and curved tower-y looking bits and porches painted in contrasting pastel colors. He sees a sign for the local university’s law school, some fancy castle-looking buildings across the street, a soccer field, Volvos, rosebushes in front yards. Ladies with pearls, he thinks, and men who’ve never once had to scrub under their fingernails. Not for him, but harmless enough.

127, though, is different. The paint’s flaking off onto the untrimmed bushes, and there’s a brown hole where half a block of sidewalk concrete has broken off. Dean’s no plant expert, but dark green with lots of red or purple is never a good sign, and he’d be willing to bet some of the things growing alongside the house are poisonous. All of the windows have heavy black curtains blocking them. This is definitely the kind of house kids dare each other to go up to. All it needs is a black fucking cat and it’ll be ready for Halloween.

Up and down the street, people are starting to pick up their papers from the curb, pack their kids into their cars, walk their dogs... It’s still early and quiet, but kind of a friendly, busy quiet. It freaked him the fuck out, when he first moved in with Lisa. People in the kind of motels he grew up in are either still sleeping it off at this hour, or they left at dawn and tried to avoid eye contact with the clerk on the way out. The first time someone kind of half-waved at him in the morning he thought, what? What do you want from me? Nothing, it turned out - people just said hi. It was kind of nice. Stupid, but nice. 

Anyway, he knows nobody’s gonna actually walk up and talk to him. They’re timid in suburbia. But at the same time, he knows everybody who sees his car pull up - big, mean and beautiful, looking like she could eat these Volvos alive - is watching him out of the corner of their eyes. He pretends he doesn’t feel the looks, though, and cuts through the dead grass to get to the porch.

He stands there for a while, alternately ringing the bell and knocking. Finally, a woman opens the door, gasps in shock, and then slams it in his face. He didn’t even get a good look at her. She still looks young, which probably means bad mojo. Well, one way or another, they are having a conversation. He knocks again.

“Oh, no. Not you. Go away,” she says through the door.

What the fuck?

“Uh... do we know each other?”

“No, you don’t know me. And I don’t plan on dying, so that’s the way it’s gonna stay. Get out of here or I’ll call the cops.”

Okay, that’s a new one. He doesn’t go around killing witches, not as a habit... Demon? Who calls the cops? Nah. Maybe this is just human shit. If he weren’t officially dead, the cops sure would be interested in him. He tries to pitch his voice into something reassuring. It comes out somewhere between “buck up, Sammy, it’s just a scratch” and “don’t you want to take me home, random hot chick?” 

“Listen... if I was on TV or something, I can promise you, it’s not like it looks... I haven’t hurt anybody...”

“Bullshit. And yeah, you were on America’s Most Wanted a couple years ago, but that’s not even what this is about.”

And that’s about it for his patience this morning. He raises his voice. A lot.

“Okay, so you are a witch, right?”

She yanks the door back open.

“You wanna keep your voice down?”

“WITCH!”

“Fine, get inside.”

Now they’re getting somewhere. She turns around and leads the way into her house - turning her back on him. So she’s not that scared of him, after all. Or she has no idea how to protect herself.

She takes him into a big front room, full of old dark wood and bookshelves and fat candles. It’s a little creepy, but hell, his fondest childhood memories are of a house with occult symbols written on the ceiling. Speaking of which - he looks up. Yeah, devil’s trap. So definitely not a demon. That’s nice. She’s wearing all black, but it’s sweatpants and a tank top, not a pointy hat. He might have gotten her out of bed. She pulls her bare feet up onto the edge of the couch with her, and he notices her toenails are painted black, too. Her big toes each have a teeny white star sticker on them.

No, he warns himself sharply, this is the trap, and a damn smart one, too. She’s hiding in plain sight, acting like any other goofball Wiccan or harmless goth-y chick, hoping you won’t take her seriously. She’s old enough to know exactly what she’s doing, and you’re falling for it. Watch the fuck out, Winchester.

“Look, I don’t mean any harm.”

“Oh, I know that.”

“So you’re a psychic?”

“No, but I’ve got some damn good spells up around this place, and if you’d have come through with bad intentions they’d have zapped you like a bug. You don’t need to reassure me on that front.”

“So... how do you know who I am?”

“The name’s gotten around. All you have to do is type it into google, and right after the hit on the FBI website there’s one for a book series. People who can read books of magic can also usually manage a little light supposed-to-be-fiction. And you know what, I’ve noticed something. You main characters never die. Not for good, anyway. But the bit players, they drop just to add some flavor to the story. Well, not me. Now - be a little discreeter on your way out.”

She stands, but he stays put.

“Don’t you even want to know how I found you?”

“I assume you spoke to another witch. Mind giving me the name?”

“No, I didn’t talk to anyone. You’re listed in the world’s weirdest address book.”

“Which is...?”

“You ever heard of the Men of Letters?”

She’s been standing over him, waiting for him to get the hint, but he’s not moving until he’s good and ready. Awkwardly, she sits back down.

“Uh... it rings a bell. Wait, the librarian assholes - they’re still around?”

“No, no they’re not. We kinda inherited their stuff. I take it you used to know them?”

“Well, not personally.”

“They knew you.” He hands over his scribbled copy of their entry on her.

She laughs. “Wow. Okay, no, that’s my grandmother. You don’t know what this means, do you? ‘Hereditary witch.’ Never mind, it’s not important. I’m still not interested.”

“But can you do it?”

“What?”

“Can you heal people?”

“I can do a lot of things, but not for you.”

She stands back up again, sweeping an arm out like she’s gonna usher him out, and you know what, fuck being careful, fuck being polite, fuck all this, he doesn’t have time for this. He’s got seven hours back to where his brother is hanging on, damn it, cause nothing better happen to him while Dean’s away. So he stands up, alright, right into her space, using every inch he’s got on her to let her know he is not kidding around.

“Listen, if I had anyone else to ask, you can be damn sure I wouldn’t be here. But I got nothin’, and this is all I can think of to do. My brother is sick. As in... he might not make it. And if you can help him, then you’re gonna. One way or another.”

She crosses her arms, leans back, but stands her ground.

“And normal doctors aren’t an option because...”

“Cause it’s definitely supernatural.”

“I assume we’re talking spell, not monster bite.”

“Yeah.”

She shakes her head dismissively at that, breaking away from their little standoff to sit back on the couch.

“No, sorry. I can’t do anything for him.”

It’s not even snarky anymore, it’s almost like she feels sorry for him. Shit, he doesn’t like that.

“At least look at him.”

“I don’t have to, I’m telling you right now, there’s nothing I can do.”

“Well why not?”

“There’s only one way to break a spell you didn’t cast - completely destroy the object of the spell.”

“Oh.”

No. This was his last hope. There’s got to be a way. But the coldness in his bones says maybe there isn’t. He sits back down heavily. There’s real pity in her voice now.

“Yeah. So unless you know where the juice for this spell came from...”

“No.”

But hey - they’ve got the instructions, a prophet, and a whole bunker full of reference shit. His head jerks back up.

“If we told you all about it, though - could you find out?”

She pauses, then sighs. “Maybe. What’s in it for me?”

“You like magic stuff? We’ve got everything the Men of Letters had saved up. Books, relics, we got rooms we haven’t even looked into yet.”

“So are you offering library privileges, or do I get to have this ‘stuff’?”

If she can fix Sam he’ll sign over the bunker right now, but he’s not about to start trusting her.

“Why don’t we see how well you do.”

Thing is, she’s got him by the balls, and she knows it.

“Nope. I want all of it. Regardless of what happens.”

“How do I know you’ll try -”

She glares at him. “Who do you think you’re talking to? I don’t half-ass my work. Do we have a deal or not?”

“Fine, yes.”

“Okay, good.” She stands up like she means business, this time, and turns to another doorway. “Kate? Grab your bags, we’re going.”

And this girl - almost a kid, really - steps out from the room next door. She’s got a gun in her hand, and the only reason Dean doesn’t freak is he can see her clicking the safety back on as she walks.

“Jesus.”

“Kate,” the first witch corrects him with a smirk. “I’m Alyssa, not Alice.”

“I thought you said your spells were gonna protect you.”

“Well, yeah, they should, but spells are made to be countered. Somebody’s always working to get out ahead of you, so... better safe than sorry.”

The comparatively old witch - Alyssa - keeps talking to him while she sticks her head in a hall closet, grabbing some stuff. The fact that she’s already packing is comforting.

“So you use a gun? Not magic?”

Kate shrugs, dropping two already full duffles at the door. “It’s quicker.”

“We’re ready,” Alyssa says, carrying bags of her own.

“That was quick.”

“We do this a lot.”

*******************************

For the next three hours, the only sounds are the radio and the tires on the road. That’s fine with Dean. He’s not doing this to make friends. Eventually, though, exhaustion starts sneaking up on him. There’s no way he’s going to let one of them drive, and there’s no way he’s stopping until they help Sam, so it’s just too damn bad, he’ll have to tough it out. He can try and mainline some more coffee at the next gas station. In the meantime, he’ll talk.

“You said you do this a lot. Heal people?”

“Yeah. We give it a shot,” Alyssa, sitting in Sam’s seat, says.

“Well, how often does it work?”

Her voice is grim. “About half the time.”

And Sam will be part of the good half, Dean tells himself firmly, and moves right along.

“And what’s in it for you?”

Kate leans up from the back, indignant. “It’s her job, that’s what-”

“-yeah, I get paid. That’s enough, Kate,” she interrupts sharply.

“You’re the boss, I guess,” Dean says, sparing a glance over at them. As long as he’s talking, might as well try to figure them out. 

Kate crosses her arms and shoots a look over at the other witch. “I don’t know, Lys, what are we to each other?”

“I’m in charge,” Lys says firmly, and a determined silence settles back over the car.

“Ohhkay then. Listen, I don’t give a shit, but somebody’s gotta talk to me before I drive us off the road.”

“Tell me about your brother.”

“I thought you read about him already.”

Lys shakes her head impatiently. “I don’t care about his angst or whatever. I need symptoms.”

Dean swallows. It’s hard. “He’s in a coma. There’s a lot of damage. The doctors said they can’t do anything.”

“Okay. If we wake him up, do you have someplace we can go? Someplace safe?”

“Not around here. I guess you could say we’re based out of Kansas.”

She sighs. “Okay, then. Kansas it is.”

*******************************

A couple of hours later, Dean pays for another tank of gas (if he ever paid with real money, he could never afford to drive his baby) and a couple of those little energy shot bottles these places keep displayed on their counters to sell to truckers. Lys is wandering up and down outside, peering at her phone’s display against the glare of the noonday sun. Kate made a beeline for the place’s only bathroom. Whatever - Dean goes around the corner into the bushes and takes a piss.

Before he comes back, he takes a minute. “Hey, Cas. I meant what I said earlier. Come back, man. It’s not just about Sam, I think I found Sam help - just - you should be with us.” There’s nothing. “At least tell me what’s going on.” Silence. He sighs. “Okay, well - the offer stands. Come back anytime.”

As he comes back around the corner, he sees Lys is standing with her back to him, talking into her phone. And yeah, maybe you shouldn’t eavesdrop normally, but he’s gonna say that rule doesn’t apply when you’re dealing with powerful, ruthless witches.

“Kansas. No, I don’t know where in Kansas.”

Dean’s heart freezes, thinking of all the people who’d love to know where the bunker is.

“Cause that’s where the guy is based,” Lys continues. “I don’t know, he’s just some fucking hunter...”

Huh. She knows very well who they are. So she’s not sending someone to kill them. But then who’s she talking to?

“Cause they batted their eyes and asked pretty please, what do you think? I’m getting paid... I don’t know how long. Could be a while... Well, then I’m taking a sabbatical... Hey, I don’t have to explain myself to you. Kate and I are going AWOL for a while, deal with it... No, out of the question. She’s coming with me. I don’t want to spend that long without my -”

Irritated, Lys turns to pace, and sees him. She immediately cuts her sentence off. “Gotta go.”

Dean raises his eyebrows, and goes for the light approach. “Jerk boss?”

“Nope,” she says, and brushes past him to the car.

*************************************

Dean tells the nurses these girls are his cousins, and maybe it’s not quite visiting hours yet, but it’s a small-town hospital with nothing much else going on, and nobody really has the heart to be a stickler about when they can see the dying man. 

Some nice, matronly lady walks them down the hall to his room, telling Dean there was no change today. He doesn’t fake his look of relief at that. She leaves immediately, giving the “family” privacy. For a minute, they all listen to her footsteps go back down the hall.

Then Lys orders, “Lock the door.” With what? There’s no locks - you don’t ever need to lock hospital doors, he guesses - so he settles for jamming a chair under the knob and trying to drag over a cabinet as quietly as he can to backstop it.

While he’s involved in that, they’re busy. Kate’s got this giant purse he thought was some kind of stupid fashion statement, but now he realizes it’s a fucking great way to smuggle things into a hospital. They’re pulling all kinds of shit out of there. Kate’s lighting candles in a circle around the bed, and Lys pulls out a little bottle of - blood?

“Hey, whoa, whoa, what’s that?!”

“Relax, it’s chicken blood. Pre-spelled.”

Not like Dean can tell the difference, or would know if she did something awful to his brother. He’s got to take this completely on faith, but what other choice does he have? He steps back, letting her bend over Sam and smear a streak of blood across his forehead. Kate squeezes by him as well, and sticks a dreamcatcher above his head with a piece of tape. It looks like some kind of tourist trap souvenir, and he feels his heart sink. This is gonna help?

Apparently Lys sees it on his face. “They do work, if you make ‘em right. This one’s a little modified. We’re gonna... open a line to his subconscious. That makes sure we’re the only ones getting through.” 

Kate heads to the other side of the bed and stretches out her hands. Lys grabs one, and they look expectantly at him. “C’mere. Hurry up.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“We’re going to call him back. It’ll be good for him to hear a familiar voice, he can focus in on that. Repeat after me. And when you say it, mean it.”

So he grabs hands over his brother’s body, and follows along in the chant. “Sam Winchester, we call you... Sam Winchester, we call you... Sam Winchester, we call you...” 

He kind of expected it to feel like praying. Dean’s spent literally years now calling and asking and begging, and he never knows if it makes a damn bit of difference. If Cas even hears him. At this point, Dean thinks he’d be shocked if the bastard did actually answer him. It embarrasses him that he keeps trying. But he does, saying it like he means it to thin air. He’s good at that now.

This, though, it’s completely different. He feels it right away - kind of a tug in his gut, and like the hairs on his arms are standing up. Maybe it ain’t much, but here’s a result he can feel.

The chant shifts. “Sam Winchester, we need you... Sam Winchester, we need you... Sam Winchester, we need you...” Hell yes, that’s the truth. He puts as much feeling into the simple words as he can, and he feels the power of whatever this is build too. Kate raises her eyebrows, and Lys nods, and ups the ante.

“Sam Winchester, come to us! Sam Winchester, come to us! Sam Winchester, come to us!” There’s no real noise happening, he knows that, but Dean can hardly hear over the blood rushing in his ears.

Sam sucks in this deep, ragged breath that lifts his chest - and then he doesn’t let it out. Oh shit. Dean pulls his hands away from the witches, leaning over anxiously, and they snatch back at him, trying to re-establish their circle. Lys looks at him like he’s supposed to know what to do.

“He can hear you now.”

“He’s not breathing!”

“Talk, dumbass! Get him back!”

He swallows. “Okay - uh, Sam? Come on back, now. Come on, man.”

Sam exhales, shaky and slow. He doesn’t draw in another breath. Lys is getting anxious now, too. Shit.

“Go, talk, don’t stop!”

“Please, man. You can do it, I know you can. I’ve got help, we’re gonna get you better, you just gotta fight it, man. Come on. Come back to me, Sammy, come on, breathe. Please, Sam. Don’t do this to me, come on, please...”

Dean’s getting desperate now, but then Sam inhales.

“Yeah! Good, Sam, keep going, come on back. Listen to me, Sam, I’m right here. Always been, always will be, you know that, right? Come on back to me now...”

Sam exhales, then inhales. Exhales. Inhales. Dean just keeps babbling, giving Sam something to trace back from wherever the hell he was, and he can hardly believe it, but it’s working. Sam’s breaths get faster and harder, and Lys drops their hands and rummages around in their bag, pulling out a - Wet Wipe. Huh. She scrubs the blood off Sam’s forehead like she’s a mom getting some crud off her kid. For a minute Dean’s distracted by how weirdly normal that is.

And then Sam turns his head. And opens his eyes. Dean crouches down to push his hair out of his face and smile at him, make a friendly face the first thing he sees. Just like old times.

“Hey, Sammy.”

“Hey... What happened?”

“You were out for a while there...”

Sam’s not fixed. Dean can see that by the way he’s clenching his jaw and wincing as he struggles to sit up. But he’s awake. “Who are they?”

“They’re helping us.”

“But who are they?”

The witches aren’t waiting around for him to explain, though. They’re puffing out candles, shoving things back into the bag. Lys’ face doesn’t look any less relieved. She ignores Sam completely and speaks directly to Dean.

“Don’t get too excited, he’s not even remotely out of the woods yet. Go get a nurse, hurry. He’s got to check out now, while he’s still awake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- Alice Young is the name of the first witch executed in the American colonies - Hartford, Connecticut, 1647.
> 
> 2- 127 Girard Avenue exists, but isn't nearly as run-down as I made it.


	2. Lys

Lys has done some pretty stupid things in her day, but this is right up there among the greatest hits. People around the Winchesters drop like flies, she’s picked up that much, and that’s just the innocent bystanders. Sam’s just a confused tangle of giant limbs at this point, but even spelling him awake, she swears she could see Dean’s trigger finger getting itchy. Typical hunter - pull out the blood and they assume the worst.

But, hey. People do stupid things for love.

Most witches don’t write their own spells. But the ones that do, they can tell you the moment it clicked into place for them, the moment they knew they weren’t going to stop at the same tired old charms. Lys was raised into it, of course, but she didn’t fall in love until she was thirteen. It was a loose collection of spells dealing with death, ghosts, and punishments - way out of her league. No sane adult witch would have let her anywhere near such a dark spellbook, but she was always hungry to know more, reading on the sly. She opened that one up, and for the first time, she just got it. Or it got her. The spells weren’t her words, but they might as well have been, and they worked so smoothly, so powerfully. She just thought, more. I need more of this. NOW.

Lys’ grandmother called those Men of Letters guys “the librarians” because of how they collected. Whole rooms of things, Dean said. She’d do a hell of a lot more than risk the company of these two, for a reward like that.

Sam holds it together long enough to sign all the papers saying the hospital washes its hands of this nutjob, which is good. But by the time they’re in the car, his eyes are already starting to lose focus a little. Shit, that was fast. She’s not going to say it out loud, but Lys thinks there’s a good chance she’s going to lose this one. Judging from how quiet Kate’s gotten, she’s thinking the same thing. There’s no time to figure out this spell, not right now. This is a straight-up salvage job.

“Dean, we need a hotel room.”

“What?” he says, all confused. Seriously? Did he really think he was gonna make it all the way to Kansas like this?

“We woke him up temporarily, but he’s not stable. He’s gonna go under again. Soon.”

“What?” This time it’s in stereo. Sam’s still aware enough to process what she says, apparently.

Lys leans over the seat from the back and sticks her head between them, trying to speak slowly and clearly so it gets through this time. “Sam needs a lot of help. We need a place to take him, and we need to be there like, yesterday.”

Dean nods. Their speed picks up. Good. Then Sam’s head lolls a little. Shit, not good. She flicks his ear.

“Hey, you! Stay awake! I need to know what’s wrong.”

“Uh... I don’t know.” He’s fighting unconsciousness, she can see that in the way the skin around his eyes keeps tightening and loosening. He looks like if he were lucid enough, he’d be panicking. He should be; he’s dying. This part always sucks.

“What hurts? What feels wrong?”

“It feels like... I can’t breathe.”

“Like there’s something blocking your throat, or like it doesn’t matter how much you inhale?”

“Like it doesn’t matter.”

She presses two fingers into his neck for a pulse, reaching out with just a touch of her power to counteract the way the car’s shaking them around. Weak and fast, and his skin feels cold.

“Can you taste blood?”

“Yeah. But I mean... I’ve been coughing it up for a while.”

“Damn.”

“What?”

“That’s internal bleeding. A fucking lot of it, sounds like.”

“Oh.” For a minute, the car’s quiet.

It could be anything, literally anything. It could be a spell to shred his insides, so she can’t heal him without it starting all over again. It could just be a spell to give him the worst, slowest death possible, and if she stops this he’ll just burst into flames or water will fill his lungs or something. Or it could be nothing but a really awful side effect of an even worse problem - something growing in him, something essential that’s been magically deleted from his body, who knows? She can’t do this, it’s fucking impossible.

Dean’s turned off the highway by now. They pass a gas station with a painted sign advertising live bait. There’s an earthworm pictured, the kind that regrows its tail if you cut it off...

Lys slams her hand down on the seat and says, “Dean, stop, stop at this gas station, quick!” As he pulls in, she tells him, “Go buy some worms. Lots of ‘em, we’re talking twenty pounds. And make sure they’re all alive. Just do it, I’ll explain on the way.”

Dean doesn’t waste time asking why. When he’s gone, though, Kate’s raised eyebrows do just that.

“Massive regeneration,” Lys explains.

Kate winces. “Lys... I mean, I know he’s got nothing to lose, but if you can’t get the power level right...”

“Yeah, hence the worms. We’ll siphon the overflow into them.”

This is the best face Kate can make, the “holy shit, that’s genius and crazy dangerous and I’m totally on board” face. And because she’s awesome, she doesn’t even try to talk Lys out of it.

“Okay. We’ll give it a shot.”

Sam’s twisted his head around to listen, or at least to try. Lys almost admires his toughness. No, she corrects herself, she doesn’t, because she doesn’t have any opinion about him at all. This is just a body to work on, a puzzle to solve, and most likely she’ll fail anyway. And then Dean is already back, throwing the boxes of worms in the trunk and swinging the car back out onto the road in record time. Hunter efficiency, you do have to appreciate it. She leans forward again to explain.

“His body’s damaged. I need to get his cells to regenerate. It’d be tricky even if I knew the right power dosage to give him, and I don’t. Uncontrolled cell growth is cancer. If I overshoot it on the juice, he’ll have tumors the size of golfballs. So I need something living to siphon off the rest of it. Something we don’t mind dying of cancer.”

Sam croaks, “You’re giving me cancer?” Damn, he’s still following the thread of the conversation? This guy must have the constitution of an ox.

“Put it this way: you can risk a tumor, or you can drown in your own blood, and soon.”

“Oh.”

“I take it you’re on board.”

“Yeah.”

*************************************

Dean gets a room - only one, Lys notices. He’s not thinking straight. But there’s no point in bringing it up. If this works, they’ll have time later to get another one. If it doesn’t, they’ll be heading home anyway. 

While he’s unlocking the door, she and Kate pull Sam out of the car. He’s scrawny but awkward, long arms and legs he’s not controlling well, and almost completely dead weight. Still, he walks to the door as if he’s just maybe a little unsteady, nothing that would attract any attention. Lys wonders if he can feel the discreet power that’s holding him up. She wouldn’t want to tip her hand on that, but what the hell. He’s heavy.

Kate digs through their bag, picking out the right pre-spelled powders for a potion, and Lys spares a moment to appreciate her skill. She’s come a long way. Then Lys snags a plastic cup and some water from the sink, and gets started mixing the potion. The dosage will be a judgment call. She tips enough into the mixture to make it black, but fortunately, magical illiterates like the Winchesters won’t know it’s supposed to be light green. It’ll be grainy and taste awful, but that is truly the last of their problems.

Sam is still propped up on his elbows, though his eyes are almost rolling back in his head. Damn. You really have to hand it to him, he’s hanging on. Dean’s dropped the worms in the room and is now hovering in the background with his feet well-placed, arms loose and ready, like any minute now he’s gonna have to rush into a fight or something. Just exactly what they don’t need.

“Okay, listen up,” she addresses the room. “This works exactly like electricity. Kate’s the power source, and the power will flow anywhere that it can, into anything living that comes into contact with it. So she needs to touch Sam, and nothing else. Like she’s the wall socket and you’re the lamp, Sam - you break skin contact, you go dark. Okay?” Sam nods. “You’re gonna drink this, and it’s gonna target that energy to the damaged areas. I’m gonna take off the excess and ground it in the worms over here. I’m your surge protector. It’s gonna hurt like hell, but if you break contact with me, well... your bulb goes pop. So stay as still as you can.” He just nods again. Maybe it’s the shock, but he doesn’t even seem afraid, just grimly resigned.

“And you,” she addresses Dean. “I’m gonna have one hand on him and one in the worms. I don’t have one to spare for you. If you touch him, you’re a dead man. You understand me?”

“Yeah,” he nods, but his hands clench up into fists.

Conveniently, Sam didn’t bother to lace his shoes when he left the hospital. Kate heads to the foot of the bed and pulls them right off, and his socks along with them. Lys takes the worms and sits on the bed beside him, offering the black drink. It’s got to taste foul, but he chugs it pretty well, and then lays obediently back. 

“If you can pass out, you should. We can wake you up again later.” He nods - but he stays awake. That’ll be the adrenaline kicking in. This guy’s luck really is shitty.

Lys dumps all the worms out onto the bed in a pile. It’s a huge, disgusting, wriggling lump. She doesn’t want to put her hand into that, but she does, trying to work her fingers in between the soft slimy bodies. Sam’s hair is long and greasy, sticking to itself in clumps of sweat and dirt. She really doesn’t want to put her hand into that either, but she does, shifting her fingers around until her palm is flat against the crown of his head. Then she looks up at Kate, waiting patiently.

“Give it all you’ve got,” Lys reminds her. “I’ll handle the dose.” Kate nods like she’s certain, and over her shoulder, Lys sees Dean swallow and thinks, if only he knew how uncertain this is.

Kate inhales slowly, holding her hands out in front of her, and begins the spell. “Voller Demut komme ich zu euch, ehrwuerdigsten Geister, und bitte um ihre Hilfe. Meinetwegen nicht, o grosse Maechte, sondern um diesen Mannes Willen. O Kraefte des Erdens, den Leidenschaften, des Lebens, euer Schloss ist eine Ruine, der Tod macht sich hier frei! Kommt, und helft mir ihn vertreiben!”

It’s a bitch to memorize, but damn, does that spell work. Power slams into Kate so hard that it almost knocks her forward, but she’s braced for it, and grabs for Sam’s feet. He jerks up like he’s being shocked, but Lys has no more time to watch with her outward eyes.

She’s been explaining it to the Winchesters as draining off power, but in reality, it’s more the opposite. It naturally wants to flow straight through to her, sweeping her along in the same wave without staying long enough to heal Sam. She’s experienced, though, and she knows how to resist it, how to block it off with an answering force of her own. It only prickles in points along her hand, like water trying to escape from a blocked shower head. The pressure’s light, then stinging. Sam’s getting more restless, starting to writhe slightly, and she tries to push down hard, flattening his head to the bed. Has he had enough? 

Yes, she decides. It starts to burn, Lys drops her resistance just a little, and immediately the power surges through the cracks, washes straight through her and out into the worms. They jerk and wriggle, stiffening and curling up tight, and she grits her teeth and keeps her hand down among them, good and buried. It’s hard to hold a door shut against a tsunami; it’s harder to hold it half-open. She grinds her teeth against the strain, pushes down against the squishing, splitting worms, tangles her fingers mercilessly into Sam’s hair to yank and hold her grip as he starts to thrash... it goes on forever, and for no time at all. For a while, they just are.

Suddenly, Sam stops moving, and Lys shouts, “Kate, let up!” She already has, though, muttering the reversing words of thanks. Lys keeps her hand on their patient’s head and drops all of her resistance, catching the last trickles of power, letting them flow into the hot, sticky mess her other hand is pinned under. She looks Sam over while she does it, and - now that it worked, she can admit she’s surprised that it worked. His color’s better, his breathing is easy and deep. There are the shiny traces of tears at the corners of his eyes and he’s knocked out for the time being, but he should wake right back up. She pulls her hand off him, and wipes the grease off her hand onto her jeans. Now he just desperately needs a shower.

And - Jesus, so does she. The worms are almost unrecognizable lumps, red and brown and even black balls of slimy tissue. She has her hand buried in a giant tumor. Not much makes her sick, but... Jesus. 

Dean is still standing back, uncertain but anxious, eyes trained on his brother like a dog behind an invisible fence. “He’s all yours,” she tells him, scrambling off the bed for the sink.

Behind her, Dean starts babbling again, assuring his brother that he’ll be fine now, that Dean will take care of him, that now everything will be fine. If Sam believes even half of that, he’s an idiot. Dean is useless here, and Sam’s still living on borrowed time, and frankly, even if they get through this, what Lys knows of them suggests they’ll just immediately find another way to die. Maybe Dean says it for himself, just something to keep him from falling apart. Or maybe it’s like some kind of mantra he’s trying to believe into reality, like he can manifest it if he just repeats it enough times. Huh, there might actually be something to that. Certain spells do work that way. Is Dean’s chatter the secret to their luck? Maybe there’s more in this little adventure for her than the books at the end of it. The Winchesters themselves could be interesting to study.

*************************************

Over the week that it takes them to get to Kansas, Lys quietly takes notes on the Winchesters. She doesn’t pick up anything really useful. But she does learn several things. 

First, Dean Winchester is a fucking psycho. It took a day for him to even remember he had a demon locked in his trunk, and “relax, it’s not like it’ll kill him” doesn’t exactly make her feel any better. The less she and Kate have to do with that, the better. But what’s really disturbing is how quickly Dean flicks back and forth between these two aspects of himself. Half the time he’s following his brother around with his eyes all big and concerned, acting like he’ll fall over and die if Dean lets him out of his sight, and then when he sees an enemy it’s like all of that emotion just goes offline. If anything, he looks a little cheerful at the thought of having something to kill. The dividing line between Jekyll and Hyde over there in the driver’s seat looks pretty paper thin. If Dean had an inkling of who was really in the car with him, she has no idea how he’d react. So he’s never going to find out.

Second, Sam Winchester is stupid. Dean, Lys, Kate, and even the damn demon in the trunk know Sam is dying. That’s the only reason the witches are even there, to turn it around if they can, and Lys thinks they’ve demonstrated pretty clearly that they can. But only if they know what’s going on inside him - and Sam apparently likes to play the stoic martyr. Oh, it’s just a cough, Sam’ll say, folding his hand up awkwardly, glancing guiltily towards his brother. Lys already explained that they hadn’t cured him, so who does he think he’s fooling? Of course he’s coughing up blood. But she needs to know when and how much, so she can judge when they’ll have to kill another zillion worms for him and buy him more time. She can’t help him if he isn’t honest with her, but every time she tells him that, he just nods solemnly, and shoots another shifty look at his brother.

Third, despite how much Allan whined about it, she’s really glad she took a break. Okay, call it a working vacation, but she’s never seen this part of the country (it’s... flat), and it’s turning into a weird bonding experience with Kate. Being trapped in the backseat of a car with someone for a long time makes you want to strangle them with your bare hands - but when you finally get out, it turns out you feel a lot closer to them. Who knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- Any spell you see in this story is just something I made up. This one is in German, and it lifts a little imagery from a part of Friedrich Schiller's Die Raeuber (The Robbers). I also tried to copy its style, as if it were written at that time (1781). I don't have an umlaut character on my keyboard so you get jacked-up spelling, sorry. Translated into English: "Full of humility I come to you, most honored spirits, and pray for your help. Not for myself, oh great powers, but for this man's sake. Oh forces of the Earth, of the passions, of life, your palace is a ruin, death makes himself at home! Come, and help me drive him out!"
> 
> 2- When they're healing Sam, Lys is literally acting like a living surge protector. Electricity naturally flows to where there's less. A surge protector has little resistors that are normally strong until they sense that the voltage is too high, when they drop their resistance and the electricity flows into a grounding wire instead.


	3. Sam

When Sam was really sick as a kid, Dean sat by his bed. Sometimes he didn’t have much choice, because they were in a motel room and Dad was cleaning his guns on the other bed, waiting for Sam’s fever to break. But sometimes, there were little rental places with more space, or they were at Bobby’s or something, and Dean would just hang out. Bring him cans of Campbell’s soup, channel-surf through the daytime soaps, “read” to him (Dean would hold up comics and then, when he got older, skin mags, insisting Sam’s request for a real book was just the fever talking), or if Sam felt really bad, just sit there and rub his back. Even at Stanford - hell, even in a mental hospital - Sam woke up feeling like shit and the first thing he did was look for Dean.

Sam is thirty years old, and he wakes up alone and feeling like shit, and what bothers him the most is that Dean’s not there. Is he ever going to grow up?

Apparently not. He lays in bed and feels bad, and sorry for himself, and bad about feeling sorry for himself, for a while, staring at the ceiling. What is it about family that keeps you a teenager forever? He sighs. This is ridiculous. He needs to get up.

There’s a sharp pain in his chest when he tries. All of a sudden there’s a new urgency to his movements. What if he’s really in trouble here? What if his heart’s about to give out? He groans, struggling harder.

He’s still only managed to pull his head off the pillow by the time Lys sticks her head in. She immediately scowls at him.

“Don’t even think about it! You’re too weak!”

Normally, he’d put up a fight, but she has a point. He lays back.

“Where’s Dean?”

“He got a phone call. Um, from somebody called Cas?”

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

“Yeah, he said to tell you he went to pick him up.”

“Where? Where’s he been?”

“I dunno, some homeless shelter. I told him I’d keep an eye on you ‘til he came back. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna sit by your bed like a creeper, though.” She points to his bedside table. A baby monitor? Great. Rub the helplessness in.

“I’m getting... sicker. Again.” His head seems fuzzy. It’s hard to think through it.

She frowns, and comes closer, holding the inside of her wrist up to his head. “Damn. You feel cool again. How much blood have you coughed up today?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sam-”

“I lost track, okay? I’m just - used to it. Whatever.”

Lys sits down on his bed. For a minute he thinks maybe she means to comfort him, but instead she demands, “Do you want to live?”

“Yeah.”

“Really? Cause I can’t do shit for you if you don’t fight this yourself.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He looks away, but she doesn’t so much as shift her weight. He looks back, and she’s still staring at him, eyes stern and cold. “I’m just tired, okay?”

“Why?”

“Maybe cause I’m bleeding into my own chest?”

“Nope,” she says immediately. “Try again. Maybe don’t lie to me this time.”

“Okay, because I’m bleeding into my own fucking chest and I have been for so long it’s normal to me, because it seems like I’ve spent - God, I can’t even count how long in hospitals and mental wards or locked down in a basement somewhere, I’ve been fucking broken so long I don’t even know - I don’t remember who I was before I wasn’t. I don’t know how to get back. I don’t know, what’s the end goal here, what’s the point? This is where I always end up, so... Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.”

He starts out angry, but by the end he’s just embarrassed to have spilled his guts. His increasingly worthless guts.

Lys just shrugs. “So, yes. You are tired of living, then.”

“Look, it’s not like I want to die, I just -”

“Don’t want to live. What do you think life is? You think anybody’s got a peaceful life? Nobody just says, oh, I want a good life, I’ll work toward it and I’ll get it. That is a fairytale. I do sympathize. But I’m not here to give you a hug; I’m here to fix what’s broken. And that fight for balance isn’t broken. Okay, maybe it’s a little more epic for you than for most of us, you poor bastard, but even if you could live the rest of your days as a regular guy, life would still be just a series of highs and crashes and long slow climbs back up. So - seriously, think about whether or not you can deal with that. Cause if you can’t, I can just put you out of your misery. It wouldn’t hurt.”

It’s not a threat. She actually looks pretty sympathetic, like she just offered to bring him an aspirin or something. And for just a minute, he considers it. Then he forces a laugh.

“Your bedside manner sucks.”

Really, what are his other options? He’s been to every afterlife he knows about, and pissed off people in each of them. He can’t die, he has nowhere else to go.

She shrugs. “Okay. Your choice.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“No, I’m just saying - remember that. You don’t want to fight, you don’t have to. You chose to stick around - so stop bitching about it.”

“Okay, okay. Jesus.”

“Lys,” she corrects, giving him a sour smile. “So, now that that’s settled, let’s think about how to fix you.”

“What have you been doing the last few weeks?”

“Working on it, but I’m not finished, probably won’t be for a while. And the worm cure’s keeping you afloat, but I don’t like what it’s doing to your state of mind. It’s too draining for you. I gotta think of something else.”

For a minute, Lys stares at the wall. Then she sighs, shakes her head, forces a creepy smile, and changes the subject.

“You wanna know something, Sam? When we talk about power, we describe it as coming from one of three sources. Non-witches get confused when they hear about that. They talk about “white”, “black”, and “grey” magic like they’re talking about good and evil and something in between, but we’d never describe it that way. We know that all magic is just a tool, just like a hammer, and you can use it to build or to kill, that’s up to you. But different kinds have different strengths and weaknesses, and some are more appealing to people than others. That’s all it is.”

As random as this topic change was, Sam can’t help being a little intrigued. He rolls slightly on his side to face Lys - but just so she doesn’t think she’s got the upper hand, he also makes an impatient hand motion. So what?

“If you’ve been around it enough, you can kind of tell who’s drawing power from what kind of source. I mean, technically we all, at some point, draw from all three, but everyone’s got a comfort zone, you know, something that fits their temperament best... Even someone untrained, like you. When you cast a spell, I’m like 99% sure I know where you pull your power from.”

“Where?”

“You tell me, Sam. Which ‘color’ of magic are you best at?”

His mind tries to argue his conscience into grey, at least, but the truth is, he knew the minute she asked.

“Black.”

Lys quietly answers, “Just like me.”

She’s watching him hard, now, like he’s gonna freak out. He probably should. He should be - well, not fighting, because he’s too weak, but at least trying to roll away. He should probably at least feel worried. But at this point he’s worked with demons, vampires, fallen angels, hell, he’s ridden shotgun to the devil himself in his own body. He can hear out a human who knows how to cast a spell.

“Were you telling the truth? About why you’re here, and what you’re doing to me?”

“Think, Sam, would I tell you if I wasn’t? I’m helping you because you’ve got information I want. I’m not evil. I’m not saying I’m always good, but when I fuck up, I do it without any help from Hell. And you’re the same way.”

Sam has to laugh. “Thought you said you’d read about me.”

“Listen, I kind of - administrate some shit, in our community. The black side of things, though we wouldn’t express it that way. Telling the difference between evil and dark is a job skill for me, and trust me, you’re one of mine. And yeah, our power comes from the darkness instead of the light. So fucking what? Who told you evil always hung out in the dark?”

Lys’ voice keeps rising in volume and conviction, but it sounds smooth and confident now, like a speech she’s given before. She’s pretty good at it. Part of Sam is instinctively agreeing with her, and the other is saying, yeah, the last time you really thought you were a good person, you nearly brought the world down around your ears. He cuts it short.

“So why are you telling me this?”

“I have to leave pretty soon. There’s a big ritual for the solstice, and attendance isn’t optional. If you came along... I might be able to heal you more solidly. Not for good, but it could buy you a good long stretch of time without zapping some worms.”

“There’s a catch, isn’t there.”

“Of course. I’m making it up as I go along, it’s pretty dangerous, and it’ll piss off just about everybody in my community. But I can get away with that.”

There’s almost something Dean-like about how she leans back and grins at that - or like Dean when he was younger. It drove Sam crazy when he was kid, how cocky his big brother was and how he did, actually, get away with just about all the shit he tried. It was annoying, being the kid brother to the guy who’s always right. Dean doesn't smile like that anymore, not unless he’s putting it on as a front. Sam could never have predicted how nostalgic he’d be for the things that used to aggravate him. So he lifts one corner of his mouth at Lys.

“Oh you can, huh?”

“Yep. I’m kinda a big deal.” Then she shifts back to seriousness. “You can trust me to help. But darkness is where my strength lies. That’s who I am. If you’re not cool with that, you’re not coming.”

“I’m cool with that.”

******************************************

Nobody else is cool with that.

Kevin’s not thrilled to be left alone in the bunker with Crowley in the dungeon. Crowley is most definitely not thrilled to be left alone with a murderous young prophet.

Dean’s not happy to hear that the witch he’s entrusted his brother’s life to describes herself as “dark”, but he’s gone far enough down the trust rabbit hole on this one that another little creepy detail isn’t going to tip the scales. He’s been pretty okay with her since Lys explained that hereditary witches live out normal lifespans instead of preying on others. According to Lys, their power comes from knowledge gathered over generations. They’re raised into their lifestyle, and both Winchesters can relate to that. Dean is 100% not okay with Sam going alone, though, or, for that matter, being left alone at any time for any ritual, even the worm one, which he probably has memorized. So he’s coming along. Lys doesn’t seem surprised by that.

Dean’s also being clingy with Cas, though. The poor guy is apparently human now, and he hasn’t had an easy time of it. It seems to Sam like he could use a little time recuperating in a safe place, getting the hang of things, but Dean just puts his “it is decided” face on, and Cas seems content to take it at that. Lys makes it clear she disapproves, but finally settles for a promise that Cas won’t mention his angel past.

Dean won’t fly, obviously. He also won’t let Sam travel without him. Lys and Kate have to travel with Sam, spelling him back from the edge again and again, like his supernatural nursemaids. And Dean also won’t let Cas go anywhere by himself. The upshot of all this is they’re all five crammed into the Impala, and it’s a big car, but it’s not that big. Sam is slowly suffocating. He hopes Dean is happy.

******************************************

The ritual, whatever it is, is back in Hartford. Lys says they can sleep at her place. Sam assumes she means on a couch or on a mattress in the basement or something, until he sees the house. It’s beautiful. Okay, the actual house could use some work, but still, it’s a great old place, rooted in history, the complete opposite of the low-roofed, 60’s-era motels he always seems to end up in. The neighborhood’s quiet and neat, and Sam has to stifle a pang when he sees the sign for a law school down the street. Funny how dead dreams still hang around, like ghosts you can’t salt and burn.

Inside, Lys dumps her bag on the floor and immediately heads off down the hall. “You guys just pick any room on the third floor,” she says, waving a hand in the direction of the staircase. Kate, on the other hand, sticks close, keeping an eye on them.

As Kate explains it, this is one of their community’s two most important rituals of the year, and every major witch in the US will be there. There’s no way that they could keep it that a secret. So they don’t. Tonight, the Society Room of Hartford will be hosting the annual midsummer’s celebration of the Lighthouse Preservation Society. Hey, the Atlantic’s less than an hour away. It’s a boring cocktail party with a surprise witchcraft center. Fortunately, Sam and Dean, if not Cas, are expert at finding a halfway convincing rental suit. Lys doesn’t come along. They haven’t even seen her since she walked off the minute she got home.

“She left you to do the chores, huh?” Dean remarks critically, but Kate jumps to Lys’ defense.

“She’s got to rest and prepare.”

“And you don’t?”

“Not like her. I mean, even without Sam to worry about, tonight would exhaust her.”

That catches Sam’s attention. “Why?”

Kate pauses, then sighs. “She’ll be pissed I told you, but whatever, you'll see soon enough. You ever wonder who was in charge in our world?”

“...her?”

“One of the three, yeah. The maiden, the mother, the... other one.”

Sam’s eyebrows go up so high he can feel his forehead scrunch. If those correspond to life stages then Lys is certainly no mother, but it’s hard to imagine anyone ever describing her as a “maiden”. A storm trooper, maybe... Kate can clearly read his expression.

“She’s the other one. The ‘crone’, but you better watch the fuck out if you ever call her that.”

“She’s not old.”

“That’s just symbolism. She’s got the most of the right kind of energy, so it’s her. She’s a major player in the solstice ritual, which is politics and magic in one. It gives everyone who participates a little extra power, and if you want to do any particular spell, doing it right afterward will make it the strongest you’re ever going to be able to cast. She’s going to have a lot of juice running through her tonight. But it’s also all about showing your status, and Lys gets tired of that shit fast.”

Sam doesn’t think anyone else catches what he noticed. But if Lys has the most of a certain type of energy, and that type is what she herself calls “dark”, that means Lys is the very darkest witch of every hereditary witch in the US. He still finds that worrying. He doesn’t really think Lys harbors any malice for him, not after everything she’s done, but you can mean well and do terrible things, if you’ve got bad influences. Sam’s not making a judgment, exactly. He’s just reminding himself to keep his distance. Stay alert.

When they finally get around to renting suits, Kate’s picky about the colors of their ties. “Everybody’s going to be sizing each other up. Colors send a message.”

She’s done with Sam in about five seconds flat. Black, she says, for protection from evil, and release from bad habits and addictions. As she turns away, Sam thinks sourly that he’s going to have to invent a word for “that awkward feeling when you realize a stranger already knows all the details of the lowest point of your life”. He feels like Lindsay Lohan.

Dean and Cas are much harder to figure out, apparently. She doesn’t think either of them is naturally aligned with a “dark” power base - Sam tries not to take that personally - and it’s hard to find a color that’ll represent them decently and still show their connection to Lys. Eventually she settles on brown for Dean (“protection of home and family”) and a very light blue for Cas (“changes, humanity”). Dean looks like a loser, but it’s almost a relief to see Cas back in a suit. It’s familiar.

Dean approves too, slapping a hand on his shoulder and saying, “Looks good, man.”

“Ties are uncomfortable,” Cas says, squirming.

“Dude, you wore one every day for years!”

“Not as a human.”

And now everyone’s uncomfortable.

******************************************

Sam’s the first to be suited up and ready. Upstairs, Dean is tying and retying Cas’ tie in the bathroom, trying to settle it on him in a way that doesn’t irritate him. It’s actually cute in a way that weirds Sam out a little, so he drifts downstairs, only to discover basically the same scene. In the front room, Kate is standing behind Lys, clasping a carved Chinese jade pendant around her neck. It's the only color either of them are wearing. Kate's dress is severe black satin with a high neck and sleeves past her elbows, but her hair is curled, and she at least looks festive. Lys' version of the same black satin is one of things, Sam doesn't know what they're called, where it's pants and a top in one, and her one concession to the occasion appears to be a little more eyeliner that usual. She doesn't seem happy about it, either.

“I hate this shit.”

Kate sounds tolerantly amused. “Hey, if it’s any consolation, you clean up nice.”

“It’s not.” Lys looks up to see Sam there. “Good, you’re ready. C’mere.” She grabs a black Sharpie from the table, turns his hand over, and scribbles a wiggly sigil-looking thing on the back of it. “They’re not just gonna let strange faces wander around. That symbol means me, it’s my signature. It’ll keep people off your back.”

“I guess you have to the authority to do that, huh?”

She shoots an irritated look at Kate and says, “Yeah, I do.”

“Why didn’t you want us to know?”

“Has it changed the way you think about me?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Well, there you go.” Characteristically abrupt, Lys shifts her focus. “Okay, let me explain to you how the spell’s gonna go. Come look at this.”

It’s a rock. Just a plain, flat, gray rock. He reaches out to touch it, and Lys grabs at his wrist. “Don’t touch it! Jesus. It’s cursed. It’ll suck the energy right out of something. In this case, the energy of the spell.”

“It won’t kill me, too?”

“Well, normally, yeah, it would. So we’re gonna do a claiming spell. It’s a powerful protective spell that should seal you off from any other magical influence than my own. If you had it in place already, it’d bounce any curse right off you.”

“Like a heavy duty hex bag.”

“Well, kinda. It doesn’t block them totally, it just gives them me as a forwarding address. I have to deal with it from there, and if I can’t, I’m the one that gets cursed. But the point right now is, you’ve already got a spell working on you, so I can’t claim you - and when I try, the other spell is gonna react strongly. Have you ever put hydrogen peroxide on a cut?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Well, it's almost exactly nothing like that. That stuff's basically useless, and this is heavy-duty medicine. But if it worked the way people thought it did, that would be like what's going to happen here. I'm going to bring the infection bubbling to surface. Then I put the rock on you, drain off as much of the spell’s working power as I can, and take it off before it starts in on your life itself. You should feel better for a lot longer. It’s still not a cure, but it’s a better solution.”

Kate crosses her arms, clearly disagreeing. “And we’re ignoring the political implications.”

“What implications?” Dean asks, coming down the stairs with Cas in tow.

“It’s fine,” Lys says dismissively. “I’m just doing a major spell deliberately wrong, in a way that’ll alienate a lot of people. But it’ll help Sam.” That’s apparently all Dean needs to know, but Sam resolves to dig into that more. When he’s stronger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 - The "magic" details in this story are mainly the result of a little googling, a little imagination, and a whole lot of artistic license. No attempt has been made to be at all faithful to any real tradition, past or present.
> 
> 2- Terry Pratchett, who is a genius, and whose witches are all badass, is also influencing me. For instance, calling the crone "the other one" comes straight from him.
> 
> 3- The solstices are the longest (summer) and shortest (winter) days of the year. Generally around June and December 21st.
> 
> 4- The Lighthouse Preservation Society, while real, is not a front for an organization of witches. So far as I know.
> 
> 5- Hydrogen peroxide is not a good disinfectant. That bubbling it does when you pour it on a cut, although it looks cool, has nothing to do with the infection. Damage to your body, like in a cut, means there's a lot of the enzyme catalase floating around. It splits the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into water (H20) and oxygen (02) which comes bubbling up. Meanwhile any bacteria that's there just sits back and enjoys the show.


	4. Sam 2

Once, Stanford had this reception for its professors, and the best scholarship kids were invited too. Sam stood around in a corner for an hour and a half listening to other people make small talk about holidays he’d never celebrated and sports teams he’d never kept up with before he decided to leave. 

Weirdly enough, this witch celebration feels exactly like that. It’s just a bunch of people in moderately nice clothes, most of them middle-aged or older, standing around eating crackers and drinking wine. The most impressive thing about the party is the room - it has a giant curved staircase, a huge upper balcony level, and a carved ceiling painted mostly in gold - and that was rented for the night. Nothing about anyone here screams “witch”. It’s not creepy - just awkward and isolating. 

The others don’t seem to share Sam’s feelings. Told that nothing big will be happening until midnight, Dean and Cas immediately break for the open bar, determined to sample as many expensive liquors as they can. It’s typical of Dean, but human Cas also seems weirdly enthusiastic about the plan. Kate hangs around a little longer, but her eyes keep going longingly to a cluster of younger people on the other side of the room. Eventually Lys shoves her shoulder lightly and tells her, “Go on, get out of here.” Kate grins, and disappears into the crowd.

Lys makes no attempt to speak to anyone. She leans against the staircase railing, and lets people come to her. They do, occasionally, but it’s funny. Most people barely make eye contact with Lys. They all say hello, dipping their heads a little like a sign of respect, but then they move on past, and quickly. Some of the older ones will linger for a few minutes of small talk, most of it vaguely expressing their concern that she’s been away. She keeps explaining that she’s doing “some major research”, which is a weird but discreet way to put it, he guesses. Those that hang around long enough start looking at Sam, too - first up, with that “wow you’re tall” expression he’s been getting since he was a teenager, then down, to Lys’ signature on the back of his hand. Some eyes narrow, a lot of eyebrows are raised, but Lys never introduces him, and no one seems to get the nerve to bring it up. Sam watches them sidle away to join other groups, and then he watches everybody try not to look at him at once. He’s not sure if they recognize him or what, but word is definitely getting around. Lys has to be aware that people are talking, but she just keeps standing there alone, looking into thin air. Sam, at a loss, stands next to her and does the same.

Then he sees this woman come in. She’s the kind that used to be just exactly Sam’s type, everything he once wanted - tall and tan with golden waves of hair and a big, bright smile, all dressed in gold and white with fine pearl and diamond jewelry flashing against the warm lights of the room as she moves slowly through the crowd. She has to move slowly, because she’s drawing people to her as she goes, leaving them trailing after her in their wake. She’s gorgeous. And she’s coming this way.

Lys catches him staring. “Yeah, that’s her,” she says softly. “The Maiden.”

And here she is, training that smile on Lys, who pushes off the railing and takes a step to meet her without bothering to twitch the corners of her own mouth up at all. The contrast is stark. This woman looks like a bride at her wedding, and Lys like a widow at a funeral. They shake hands formally, and then Lys steps back, and the whole chattering, laughing swarm of people climbs the staircase past her without giving her a second look. Ouch.

Sam leans back against the railing next to Lys and clears his throat. “So. She seems... nice.”

“She is. Even I like her. It’s incredibly annoying.” Sam has to laugh, and the crooked little smile on Lys’ face tells him it’s okay, she meant it as a joke. “I really do, though, I like her. I mean, yeah, there’s a rivalry there, but that’s the nature of the ritual. And tonight I win.”

“What’s this ritual all about, anyway?” Lys hesitates for a second, and Sam adds, “Or are you too busy socializing to explain?”

Lys elbows him, but she smiles. “Asshole. Okay, fine. The three, we represent the three forces ruling human life. The Maiden is the flashy stuff. Wealth, romance, luck... the start of things. I’m the end. Most people don’t like to think about it, but you can’t have one without the other. We each sponsor a “king”. Hers is the Oak King, and he symbolically grows in power from the winter to the summer solstices. Tonight he’s the most powerful he’ll ever be. Now my king, the Holly King, will kill him, and then our power will grow in turn until the winter solstice, when it starts all over again. There’s a lot of magical potential in that shift, and the ritual will capture it, so we can use it. It’s filtered to us through the Mother. She’s the Earth, the unchanging part of life, the medium we work in. She’s the single most powerful witch we have, and we call her the queen. She doesn’t actually do anything outside of the solstices, though.”

“She’s a figurehead.”

“No. Think of it like nuclear power - you don’t just go around splitting atoms in the open, right?”

“No.”

“You split atoms way the fuck deep down under some serious control. It releases heat. The heat boils water. And the steam from that turns turbines, and that makes electricity. It’s the same energy, but splitting an atom doesn’t turn the lights on. The Mother is the reactor. I’m just the light switch.”

“So she can’t be too active ‘cause she can’t be risked.”

“Exactly.”

Lys talks with her hands when she’s explaining something. Sam is tempted to point that out, but he doesn’t want to irritate her, and besides, her enthusiasm is infectious.

“That’s a weirdly scientific way to explain magic.”

“Magic is science. You don’t know how the TV works, but scientists do. It obeys the laws of physics. The supernatural’s got rules too. For instance, holy water and demons don’t mix. You know it, you just don’t know why. Well, I know why.”

Sam pushes off the railing to face her.

“Why?”

“Without all the technical detail? Your physical body is made up of atoms, right? Your soul’s like that too, we call them animas. So just like certain atoms are unstable... I’ve lost you.”

“No, no, go on.”

“Okay... quick chemistry review. Atoms like to have a nice balanced number of electrons. When they’ve got too many, they lose some, when they’ve got too few, they try and take some from somewhere else. Put unbalanced atoms together, and you get a chemical reaction.”

“Okay. So souls... are in tiny little pieces.”

“Something like that.”

“And if you do something wrong you lose whatever, little bits...”

“No, you gain them. C’mon, think about it. A giving person? Is that bad or good?”

“Okay. So... evil has too much whatever, badness particles?”

“And holy water, which has its own artificially lowered by the blessing...”

“Takes those extras for balance?”

“Yep.”

“Huh. That actually makes a lot of sense.”

******************************************

When a gray-haired guy comes up to stand impatiently by Lys, Sam actually feels a little annoyed. The party definitely picked up once he and Lys stopped pretending they had the necessary social skills to participate. They’ve been talking in their corner by the staircase ever since. 

Sam loves to learn, and Lys apparently loves to explain. It’s comforting to realize that magic, as arbitrary as it seems, has rules and reasons. Sam’s been wondering how and why things happen since the night he found out the supernatural was real. It ate at him for a long time. Eventually he gave up and accepted that there were no explanations, that all the things normal people trusted in, like science and logic, were just illusions, that the world was a terrible, scary place and the best you could do was find a safe little corner and keep it well-lit and salted. Now, though - it won’t make the world any less scary, but if Sam gets better, maybe he can at least know why.

Lys isn’t annoyed by the interruption. In fact, she gives the guy a rare real smile. “Hey, Allan. Is it already that late?”

“Yes it is. Are you going to introduce me to your friend?” he asks, heading straight to the subject everyone else has avoided.

“Um, that's Sam. ‘M claimin’ him,” she says, jerking a thumb at Sam.

He gives her a thoroughly unhappy look, but he doesn't seem to want to talk in front of Sam, and reluctantly lets it go. “Alright. Well, let’s hurry. It’ll be starting soon.”

She nods, and they duck into a side room, Sam tagging along. Allan gives a little old man groan, getting down on his knees. His voice is businesslike but warm as he starts what’s obviously some kind of pre-ritual ritual. “Lady of darkness, I honor you. Let my eyes see your truth, give me the strength to carry out your justice. Lady of darkness, be with me now and at the hour of my death.”

She puts her hands on his head. “I am with you, beloved.” They stand quietly for a minute, then Allan is back to groaning, getting back to his feet.

As they leave, Sam has another wave of doubt. He whispers to Lys, “There’s not going to be a real human sacrifice, is there?”

Lys glares at him. “It’s the twenty-first century, what do you think?” He just shrugs significantly, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Go find your brother and wait near the staircase. I’ll want to do the spell on you as soon as I’m done here.”

Dean and Cas haven’t budged from the bar all night. They’re not completely wasted or anything, but they’re definitely what Dean would call “relaxed”. Dean’s leaning heavily on Cas, one arm wrapped over his shoulders, Cas is countering with an answering lean into Dean’s side, and both of them have goofy grins on their faces. It’s good to see them happy, but Sam tries not to smile back. They don’t need any encouragement.

“This is good shit, Sam!” Dean says - too loudly. A couple of people turn and give him dirty looks, and damn, Sam’s smiling after all.

“Good to know. C’mon, guys, it’s almost showtime.”

Everyone’s turning expectantly towards the balcony, trying to edge close to get a better view. Kate weaves her way between a few groups to stand beside them. For a minute there’s that quiet hum of a crowd waiting for something, and then an older woman steps out to the edge of the balcony. “Is that the Mother?” Sam whispers to Kate.

“Yes, now shhh,” she answers.

The “queen” is wearing this blue and silver thing that looks like an old flower child’s idea of formalwear, and Sam would put good money on her wearing Birkenstocks underneath. It doesn’t really matter. Crown or not, there’s something about her that’s powerful - but also comforting. The Mother lives up to her title. Sam trusts her instinctively. She raises her arms into the air, and though her voice is calm, it carries easily across the room.

“We float over the waves of her sea. We suck in her sweet breath. By day, we crawl over her soft flesh, and at night, we sleep in her mother’s arms. The Queen is with us. We commend ourselves to the Queen.” 

Everyone but Cas and the Winchesters echoes back, “We commend ourselves to the Queen.”

The Maiden is up there on the balcony too, golden and white, and at her side is a young, handsome guy. Now he comes forward, flashing a giant movie-star smile. “Move, move!” he demands. “Give the Oak King music, give me dancing! I conjure you by the harvests waiting to burst from every seed, by the clink of coins, by your way with a lover’s body. I am the sudden gust of luck that lifts you over an impasse, I am mercy slipping you from the executioner’s noose. I am the scorching light of the wildfire and the soft light of the candle. I am the beginning of all things. I am love. I reign over you all, and I make all things good.”

But what Sam feels as he speaks, though, it isn’t good. Suddenly the room feels overheated, a kind of dry heat that makes his skin prickle, and when he tries to swallow, his throat closes up hard and aching. Next to him, Cas tugs urgently at his tie again, and coughs rise up from among the crowd. And there’s something else, something as familiar to Sam as a flashback, a sudden rising fury, a greed, and the leftover taste of blood on his teeth. Sam’s afraid. He’s afraid of himself.

The Oak King turns to the Mother with his bright smile, and bows deeply and theatrically. “Lady, my passion.”

But she shakes her head, and takes a step back. “You come too near, you press too hard, you burn too hot, and we are frantic and exhausted.” 

Movement draws Sam’s eye to the other side of the balcony, and he sees Allan and Lys standing there in the shadows, cool and expressionless, unaffected by the heat that has him sweating. Everyone else is speaking like they’re out of Shakespeare, but when Allan finally steps forward, there’s no showmanship. He doesn’t raise his voice at all, but the room is silent, and they all hear him say, “Brother, it is time for you to die.”

Sam doesn’t know what he expected - magic wands, maybe, like something out of Harry Potter - but the Oak King just swings, fast and hard and completely wrong, the kind of idiotic roundhouse you only see in movies. And the Holly King, a lot weaker and older but infinitely more experienced, has plenty of time to avoid him, duck in close, and land a few short, businesslike jabs to his gut. It has to have been choreographed, Sam figures, but he’s close enough to know the punches land hard. He can hear the Oak King’s wheeze when his knees hit the carpet.

Allan’s voice rings out then, cold and sharp like the wind in Montana, but God, it feels good, and as the words wash over Sam he can feel something in himself stirring in response, saying yes, this, this is what I need.

“Silence! Bow your heads before the Holly King! I conjure you by the graves of your ancestors, by the dry tongues whispering silently in your libraries, by the invisible ties binding you in duty to each other. I am the sharp edge of logic that clears your path of undergrowth, I am the clean sting of justice to heal your wounds. I am the close still dark of the basement, and the sweeping eternal dark of the night sky. I am the end of all things. I am truth. I reign over you all, and I make all things right.” 

Allan’s bow to the queen is simple and restrained. “Lady, my peace.” 

She smiles, and stretches her hand out to his head in the way that Lys did before. “I accept it, for a season.” Then she raises her hands again, and not a strand of Sam’s hair moves, but he swears there’s a wind blowing on his face, neither icy nor hot this time but something in between, warm but crisp like the unseasonal California September when he was a hopeful Stanford freshman. “And I rain it on your heads, and I press it under your feet, and I call it up in your hearts. Take your share!” 

All around him, hands shoot into the air. “We take it!”

The party’s over as suddenly as if someone had flicked off the lights. Most people start squeezing slowly and determinedly towards the exits, a few just start chanting and chalking circles right on the floor of the room. Sam keeps his eyes trained on Lys up above, where he watches Allan drop again to his knees and seem to do just about the same ritual as they did before. When they’re done, Lys looks drained, so much so that she accepts Allan’s arm as they hurry back down the stairs.

“You okay?” he asks, and she nods and pulls away from Allan, who hurries off looking serious.

“Yeah, let’s go. C’mon.”

The crowd moves aside for their little group, whether for Lys or the looming Winchesters Sam’s not exactly sure. At any rate, they’re out a service door and have him laid on his back in the backseat of the Impala so quickly that things start to seem a little surreal. Sam feels the usual cold sick twist of worry that he’s lost his grip on reality again, but he shoves it down hard. No, he is not going down that rabbit hole today. Lys’s knee is jabbing uncomfortably into his ribs as she tries to crouch on the floorboards next to him. Pain; this is real.

“Unbutton your shirt for the rock,” she says, pulling supplies out of her bag. “This is gonna seem freaky, but trust me on this, okay? It’s gonna be fine.”

It’s unclear whether that was addressed to Sam or to Dean, hanging over the front seat, but it doesn’t make Sam feel better. She keeps talking, though, either nervous or trying to distract him while she pours some clear liquid into the cap of a flask (“tap water, don’t worry”), pricks her own finger (“ow, fuck, these little bastard cuts are always the worst, you know?”), and smears it onto a scrap of paper in the same design that’s written on his hand. The click and flash of a lighter and it’s burning up, the ashes falling into the water (“Damn! Singed my fingers, I have no luck today”), and then she’s handing it to him like a shot. “Drink up.”

Sam’s come too far to argue now. He closes his eyes and tosses it back. Her hand is cool on his shoulder through his shirt, and she mutters some Latin so quickly he can barely follow it.

“Hic vir mihi est, neque quisquam. Manua sui quasi manua mei. Signum mei ossi sui, sanguinem sui, radicem dentium capillorumque sui est. Claustrum in porta animo sui sum. Vallum delerens sum ut se assequi. Hic vir mihi est, neque quisquam.”

For a minute nothing happens, then he feels an overwhelming wave of sickness, sweaty and chilled and dizzy, and everything has that stomach-turning sweet-sour smell of rotten meat... He gags and tries to turn his head for fresh air, but it feels like it’s rising up out of him, out of his bones...

Except for in the center of his chest, where there is nothing but a tugging sensation. At first it’s light, almost playful. Then it starts to ache a little. He can see Lys hovering over him, wearing rubber gloves, and when did that happen? For a minute he wonders again if he’s dreaming this, but then it doesn’t matter because the tug has become a horrible yanking and ripping, and he arches up off the seat to try to go along with it before it tears out his heart -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- "Anima" can be translated from the Latin as "soul". 
> 
> 2- One of the things Allan says in his pre-ritual ritual is an adapted line from the Hail Mary: "Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."
> 
> 3- The Latin in the claiming spell: "This man belongs to me, and no one else. His hands are my hands, as mine are his. My mark is in his bones, in his blood, in the roots of his teeth and hair. I am the lock on the door to his spirit. I am the wall you will have to destroy to reach him. This man belongs to me, and no one else.” Any mistakes in the Latin are unfortunately my own.


	5. Kevin

“In retrospect, though, Dean really overreacted. Sam’s fine now. So the witches miscalculated, it happens.”

“Thanks for the support,” Kate says behind him.

Kevin jumps hard, way harder than he really needs to. He’s still a little edgy, so sue him.

“Y’know, most people would say talking to yourself is a sign you’re cracking up,” Kate kicks the door to the library shut behind her, each hand filled with a steaming mug.

“Yeah, well, who else am I gonna talk to? I’ve spent a lot of time alone. Like... a lot. I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing that’s kept me sane.”

Kate shrugs. “You do what you gotta do. Why are you up so late?”

“I dunno. Habit, I guess. I’m tired, but I can’t relax. And this headache isn’t helping things.” It’s not the worst he’s ever had, but he hasn’t been able to shake it for over a day now, and it’s exhausting him without letting him rest. Reading mysterious chicken scratch in creepy dimly lit places isn’t a good way to live, apparently. He’s starting to think it might have done permanent damage.

“Here. Drink this.”

“What is it?”

“Tea.”

“I got that, is this the kinda tea that’ll help me sleep or the kind that’ll turn me into a frog?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s medicine. All it is, is willow ash, valerian root, and a touch of kratom.”

He stares skeptically at it, and she grabs it back out of his hand and takes a sip.

“There. See?”

What the hell. He takes a tentative sip of his own, grimacing at the taste.

“There’s no... dead man’s toenails or anything in this, is there?”

Kate grins. “It’d be too late for you now if there were.”

He immediately spits it out onto the floor.

Kate cries, “Hey! You’re cleaning that up! It was just a joke, Kevin. Jesus, you’re a suspicious kid.”

Kevin just shrugs. In his experience, you can never be too suspicious.

“Willow ash, genius, is what they make aspirin out of. The others also reduce pain and anxiety and get you to sleep. Totally legal and natural. Or at least it is until the DEA gets around to the kratom. That’s gonna make you feel a little high, but what the hell, I figured you could use the break.”

Kevin’s never been high. What if he needed to take a random drug test? Worse, what if he did some permanent damage to his brain? A little short-lived fun never seemed worth jeopardizing his goals. Now... what’s he got to lose? He chugs it.

“So it’s just plants? What’s magic about that?”

“The spell that changes the way the compounds work at the molecular level, making them more effective in the way I want while blocking the side effects I don’t. I mean I could go into the chemistry, but I know you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.”

Kevin pulls himself up to his full height. “Hey, at one point I was in AP Chem, you know.”

That just earns him a laugh. “Okay, so maybe you have a clue.”

“What are you doing up, anyway?”

“The witching hour...” she says sarcastically. “I always get a burst of energy in the wee hours.” Yeah, he gets that. He does, too.

“How’s it coming?” He knows they’re close to a counterspell. 

Kevin has spent a lot of time with the witches over the past weeks, explaining his translation of the tablet in detail. Apparently the exact choice of words matters, and the fact that Lys can’t understand the language is a huge obstacle. Kevin was reading for facts, but Lys wants to know ridiculous things like whether the word is forceful or more wishy-washy, things he can only guess at. She wants to know all the words he can think of that are related, what kinds of associations they call up in his brain. She even has him speak the words out loud, so she can hear the sound and the rhythm. The most brain-meltingly difficult SAT prep has nothing on Lys’ weird, obscure lines of questioning. She’s definitely not helping his headache.

And Lys and Kate might be witches, but Kevin recognizes a nerd’s studying stamina in them, too. When he has to take a break, the girls pull Cas into the room and ask him how things would sound in Enochian for comparison, or just try to get him to give them some context. Sam’s still in bed, weakened by his ailment and its various cures, but Lys goes to sit with him and ask him again and again for details, pushing for everything, even something as small as how many steps he took in which direction, while Kate pages through books in the library, scribbling notes. Half the stuff they do seems useless to Kevin, but ever since the others came back from Hartford, no one questions Lys. And as far as Lys is concerned, everything matters. Absolutely everything.

Now Kate frowns, but it’s good news. “We’re ready to start.”

“What?! Well - let’s call the others!” He scrapes his chair back, eager to get started, but Kate grabs his arm.

“Sleep’s important, Kevin. Let the ones that can get some. We’ll start tomorrow.”

“What do we have to do?”

Kate just shakes her head. “No, Lys should explain it. It’s complicated, and it’s also going to be... controversial.”

“Oh come on, don’t get all spooky on me now.” That came out whinier than he expected. His head has stopped hurting. He even feels a little giggly. Hey, this is kind of nice.

“Tea kicking in?”

“Guess so. What about you?”

“Oh, this? It’s just chamomile. Go to bed, Kevin.”

And he kind of wants to argue, but that might ruin the nice, warm, cozy feeling he’s got going on here. A feeling that would probably be even better under his blanket on the bed that, for once, he doesn’t mind probably used to belong to an old dead dude. Yeah, okay, he can sleep for a little while.

****************************************

Holy fuck. It’s ten o’clock. Kevin hasn’t slept this long since... ever.

Judging from the echoes of shots he can hear in the hallway, Dean’s working on improving Cas’ form at the shooting range again. He’s not really sure what the deal is with that; it’s not like the Winchesters have ever really worried about whether he can defend himself, and he’s got a lot less fighting experience than Cas. But then, he thinks, in the whole angels-demons global chess match, he’s a pawn. Cas has gotta be at least a knight.

With that cheery reminder of his place in the world, Kevin makes his way to the kitchen. It’s deserted. There’s probably breakfast food he could cook around here somewhere... but there’s also cold pizza in the fridge, so. He heads back out munching on a slice, looking for the others. Ten bucks says the witches are in the library.

Sure enough, Kate and Lys are at the same table they’ve been hunched over for weeks now. They don’t look like they’re working, though; they look like kids in a candy shop, planted in front of a huge stack of books they’re flipping through. As he comes in, Kate laughs.

“Hey, they have the Malleus Maleficarum in here!”

Lys snorts at that, shaking her head. “Oh, of course they do. MEN of Letters... Such a cliche.”

Kevin comes to sit down at the table with them, still gnawing on his pizza. 

“What’s the Malle-whatever?”

“‘The Hammer of Witches’. Women are weak and evil, witches are super evil, all women are witches, burn all the women, blah blah blah... It’s medieval, but misogyny just ages like a fine wine,” Lys laughs, making that Italian lip-smacking gesture for something delicious.

Kevin laughs weakly, not entirely sure he’s allowed to be in on the joke. Whatever it is.

“So... are we gonna fix Sam now...?”

All the fun drains out of Lys’ face, but she nods. “Yeah. Let’s get the others.”

****************************************

The table feels uncomfortably crowded with this many people sitting around it. Kevin counts - six, including him - and then does a little extra math. This is the most people he’s been around this year. Great, now he’s getting social anxiety on top of everything else.

Lys insists that they all have to hear her explanation. It’s a little dramatic, Kevin thinks, but he is curious. Still, she directs most of her attention to the Winchesters, sitting at the other end of the table.

“Okay, so Dean, your original question was where the power from the spell came from. The answer is Sam.”

Sam looks bewildered. “What? I can’t do magic.”

“Sure you can. What’s an exorcism?”

“That’s different.”

“No, it’s a pre-made tool, kinda like a gun. Anybody can point and shoot. Some people are better at it than others. Sam’s an Olympic-grade amateur.”

Kevin’s pretty sure that was a compliment, but Sam doesn’t look happy to hear it, and Dean just looks downright pissed.

“It took you this long to figure that out?”

“It took me this long to reverse-engineer a counterspell, cause I sure as hell don’t think Sam could have come up with one on his own. This is by far the most powerful spell I’ve ever seen, and it wasn’t even cast by a witch. I mean, holy shit. You’re so lucky Sam’s the only one who might die here.”

Yeah, the Winchesters don’t look like they feel lucky. Even Lys can see that. When she speaks again, it’s like she’s making a conscious effort to tone it down.

“Listen, I can’t make any promises. This is way beyond anything I’ve encountered before, and it could definitely go wrong and kill you, probably painfully. But this definitely falls into the dark side of things. My, well, our area of expertise, remember? And I’ll stick around and hand-hold you through it, okay?”

Sam does this big dramatic swallow, and nods his head a little. Next to him, Dean nods his harder, kind of grimly optimistic.

“Okay. What’s tricky about this spell is that most of the ingredients aren’t actually things you can get your hands on. See, once you get out of the basic herbs, most physical ingredients are just a way for you to focus your intention, your will. That’s what decides whether or not a spell works - how much you want it. Honestly, I don’t think most people could have cast this spell at all. The trials themselves are damn dangerous, but even if you get through them, the sustained force you’d need to have backing this thing up... You must have really, really fucking wanted this, Sam.” 

Sam examines his fingernails. His answer is soft. “Yeah, I did.”

“Okay. Well, you need to want this just as much.” That sounds like an order, and she looks hard at him as he says it. Sam just nods again.

Lys moves on, back into her happy explaining place. “It’s incredibly subtle, this spell... rather than use materials it uses experiences. Instead of giving the will things to work with, it works on the will itself.”

“So there are no physical ingredients?”

“Of course there are. They’re just all in you. Your body. Blood is a dangerous ingredient in itself. A few drops make a very powerful spell. This spell gets most of its juice from the fact that it ends with a human sacrifice. You. But to reverse it - it means we have to reverse those experiences. So it’ll be a three-phase operation, just like it was the first time around.”

Everyone is nodding, getting on board, and then Lys stops them cold.

“So first, we’re going to let the demon in your basement go.”

****************************************

Kevin doesn’t hear anything else. At some level, he must hear that Lys keeps talking. And he’s aware that the others call after him when he pushes away from the table and walks off. But he has no clue what they’re saying, and that’s fine, because he is done. He is out.

He walks calmly to his room, pulls open a drawer, and tosses a t-shirt on the bed before reality hits. What’s he doing? Where does he think he’s going to go?

How about anywhere. He keeps packing.

When Kevin steps out of his room again, backpack over his shoulder, Dean’s leaning against the wall, waiting for him. He pushes himself upright, looking surprised and concerned, and something in Kevin snarls at that. Oh, he suddenly realizes, he’s angry. That’s what this feeling is. He’s the fucking angriest he’s ever been, angry beyond yelling, so angry it’s been almost an out-of-body experience - until right now, with this target and it’s stupid Dean face in front of him.

“I’m done. You do whatever you want, but I’m done.”

“Listen, Kevin, I get it, I do-”

“Oh yeah, what do you get,” Kevin says, and it’s not a question.

“After everything Crowley’s done, trust me, I know how you feel. He’s an evil son of a bitch and I hate letting him go as much as you do, but Lys says we have to.”

Kevin’s not gonna cry. He’s not. “He killed my mom - my girlfriend - My whole life, everything I had, was gonna do, it’s gone - It’s over. I have nothing. Nothing left.”

Dean edges a little closer, like he’s sneaking up on a wild animal. “I know, man. I know, and I do understand. I’ve been there too, I’ve lost the people I cared about and -”

“And they just keep coming back!” Kevin snaps, jerking away from Dean. “You and Sam and Cas get a fucking free pass every time, but I don’t see that happening for my mom, do you? She died because of me, because of the damn tablets. Our lives were fucking shredded for those things, just so I could read them, and after all that, after everything I lost, you got right up to the point where something good might have come out of it, and you backed down! My mom died for nothing because precious Sam Winchester got yet another chance, because he was more important than the rest of the fucking world! And now I’m supposed to let the bastard that did it walk? No. Nope. You do whatever you need to do, and I hope Sam lives, I do, but I never want to see your faces again.”

Kevin tries to move past, but Dean steps to block his way. His face is hard to read, kind of guilty and defiant at the same time, but you know what, Kevin thinks, fuck what Dean’s feeling.

“Okay,” Dean says. “Fair enough. But you know it’s not safe for you out there, Kevin. I’m not saying you have to stay for good, but just don’t rush out like this. At least make a plan. Talk to Lys and Kate, maybe they’ll have somewhere you can go.” 

It makes sense, but Kevin wants to be gone. He shifts his weight, thinking about it.

“Not for us, for you. It’s in your own best interest,” Dean urges.

“Fine. Tell ‘em to come get me when they’ve got a chance to talk,” he says, spinning on his heel and slamming the door to his room.

****************************************

Kevin was a good kid. He was a hard worker, he was polite, he cared about things like animal rights - he made his mom proud. And that made him proud. For a long time, he sits on his bed and remembers that. For an even longer stretch, he just sits there blankly, thinking about nothing. And then he starts to think about what his mother would want to do in this situation.

She was a tough lady, tougher than he’d ever have guessed before the whole nightmare started. But she wasn’t mean-spirited. She would have done anything to protect him - Kevin has to swallow hard - but she wouldn’t have wanted someone to die, not if they didn’t have to. She wouldn’t have wanted Sam to die just so she could have her revenge.

Kevin’s angry, he’s so fucking angry all the way back down the hall, he really, really doesn’t want to do this, but he’s pretty sure he knows what his mom would be thinking, and he’s not about to start disappointing her just because she’s dead. 

Lys is still in the library, sitting with her feet propped up in the chair opposite her like she’s got all the time in the world. She’s reading something in a language that has a lot of squiggly marks over the letters. Cas and Dean are sitting stiffly at a table next to her, staring at their hands anxiously like a set of patients in a doctor’s waiting room. Sam and Kate are nowhere to be seen. 

Cas and Dean jerk their heads up when Kevin comes in, but Lys just nods in satisfaction, like she knew he’d come back. He goes straight to her, ignoring the others.

“You said you needed my help for this spell.”

“I could use it, yeah,” she says, dropping her feet from the chair and pushing it his way. 

“Why?” He sits down, arms folded across his chest.

“The spell worked to progressively establish a connection with and control over hell, so he’d have the ability to close the gates,” Lys says, cool as if she’s lecturing a class. “He stopped before the final showdown, but that connection’s still in place. He needs to dismantle it, and that means giving up control - first, by reversing the cure and letting the demon go. Sam had to confess and purify his blood last time; this time, he needs to come into the situation loaded with all the guilt he can carry. That’s not easy, and the more people we have involved, the better.”

“What do I need to do?” Kevin asks.

Lys leans forward, trying to read his face. “You’re pissed? Good. Put it on him. Anything negative that you feel that’s remotely connected to him, anger or blame or whatever, tell him about it. Make him carry that burden. All that nastiness can go straight to the demon.”

“You need me to yell at Sam.”

“Basically.”

“Done.”

****************************************

Kevin’s eager to get started, but Lys makes him wait his turn. She says he needs to really stew in, build himself up to the boiling point, like the others have. Dean doesn’t actually look angry at all. He looks like he’s going to be sick. Cas is... Cas. Kevin can’t really read him. But he’s surprised at how tight the clench of Kate’s jaw is when she returns from her own “confession” to Sam. She barely knows the guy; what’s she got to be mad about?

Maybe, Kevin thinks, it’s a magic thing. Lys goes next. She comes back with a bright smile on her face and sends Dean to Sam like nothing’s happened, but when she picks her book back up, Kevin can see her hands shaking.

Dean comes stalking back in without looking at anyone. “Did it,” he announces, snags a bottle of whiskey off a side table, and heads back out again.

When Cas is done, he doesn’t even bother to come back in the room, just stands in the doorway. “Do you need anything else from me?” he asks Lys gravely. She shakes her head. He heads off down the hall in the direction Dean went.

Kevin doesn’t think of himself as an angry person. He generally wants people to like him. He wants to get along. But look at all the good that’s done him. Maybe that’s why his anger has been building as he sat there, feeding on itself and multiplying like some kind of infection.

He’s never been in Sam’s room before. It’s a lot like Kevin’s own, same standard-issue furniture, kept moderately neat. Sam is sitting on his bed, doing his best impression of giant kicked puppy. There’s a chair opposite him, but Kevin stays standing. Sam never even looks up, and somehow that just makes Kevin angrier.

“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to acknowledge me. You never do.” Sam looks up at that, but fuck him. “I’m just a giant human decoder ring to you people. I know that, that’s whatever. But you, Sam, you’re the worst. At least your brother sorta cares if I live or die. But you - without Dean, you didn’t even bother to pick up the phone! Oh, you wanted a normal life? Fuck you, you’ve never had a normal life, you wouldn’t know how to live one if someone drew you a diagram. I had a normal life. I had a nice, safe, great, successful life, with people that cared about me, and it was ripped away from me and then I was on my own. Nobody taught me any survival skills like you had, Sam, I had nothing - and you, I thought you were dead too! Cause I was sure you wouldn’t just abandon me. But you did. That’s who you are when you’re normal, apparently.”

Kevin pauses for breath, chest heaving, but Sam doesn’t try to argue. He’s probably not supposed to, not if he’s supposed to just be absorbing guilt. Well, good, because even though his anger is ebbing, Kevin has more to say.

“My mom died because of me and those tablets. And I’m never gonna be okay with that, but, you know, I guess I thought - hey, if the end of all this shit is that the gates of Hell are closed, that’s, that’s pretty good. If someone has to die, that’s... a good reason to die.”

Sam’s nodding with big watery eyes, and Kevin swipes his hand over his face and goes on.

“But you didn’t do it. You’re alive, which is good. Seriously, I’m glad. But my mom’s not, and... all of this was for nothing. She died for nothing. I’ve got nothing. And some of that, okay, maybe I could have been smarter or something, maybe I could have changed it... It’s partially my fault, I guess. But it’s your fault too, Sam. And you don’t even feel bad about it. Cause you don’t even really notice me.”

Kevin leaves quickly, but the tears start running down his face in the hallway. He’s not angry anymore. He’s just completely, horribly alone.

It takes him a while to get to the library door. He takes a minute, before he steps through, to sniffle and scrub hard at his face with his sleeve. He knows he looks like a mess, but he doesn’t have to actively cry in front of the witches, anyway.

“I did it,” he announces. 

“Okay. On to the next step,” Lys says, heading to collect Sam with a handwritten scrap of paper in her hand.

In the doorway, Kate pauses and looks at Kevin for a second. She squeezes his arm, and then follows Lys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- Aspirin is in fact a synthetically modified version of a chemical found naturally in willow bark. Valerian root is an alternative treatment for insomnia. Kratom is legal in the US, but controversial. It's apparently good as a painkiller, gets you high, and will make you sleep for a loooong time after an initial stimulative effect. Again, Kate has magic to help her tailor the interactions of these three herbs. Actually trying to drink a mix of these three things in the real, non-magical world seems like a really bad idea.
> 
> 2- The Malleus Maleficarum was written by Heinrich Kramer in 1486. Official church doctrine had been that witchcraft did NOT exist, and those who believed in it were confused or crazy. Kramer was actually expelled from the city of Innsbruck in Austria by its bishop, who called him "a senile old man". But burning witches proved to be a good way to keep political or religious dissidents in line, the book's popularity took off with secular kings as well as church factions, and the rest is history. You'd think a book so out there that even the Inquisition warned people to take it with a grain of salt would be exciting to read, but it's actually just kind of dull nastiness.


	6. Cas

Cas has learned a lot about reading human emotions from their behavior. Eye contact is important. Sarcasm exists - although he’s still getting the hang of it. He knows that sometimes the first reaction, springing from anger or fear, isn’t what people really feel after consideration, and that, on the other hand, sometimes they just use that extra time to come up with a better lie. Cas has learned enough about the wide spectrum of social interaction to know how much he doesn’t know. And yes, he’s newer than most to it, but he thinks maybe this is something no one ever stops learning about.

He’d never claim to know exactly what everyone in the bunker is thinking, but it’s safe to say no one has been happy since the day they let Crowley go. Kevin hasn’t attempted to leave again, but he spends so much time in his room that Cas rarely sees him. Lys and Kate didn’t have any of the scores to settle with the King of Hell that the others do; still, just being around him seemed to upset them. Cas never saw either of them address Crowley directly, or respond to any of his taunts. They’ve never even referred to him as anything other than “the demon” or “it”. Since then, they’ve apparently decided to pretend it didn’t happen, keeping mostly to themselves, though one of them generally looks in on Kevin from time to time.

As usual, Cas worries more about the Winchester brothers. In some ways, Sam looks better, but in others, he’s taken a turn for the worse. His physical health, from what Cas can see of it, is good. His skin isn’t so pale, he eats well and looks well rested, he doesn’t even cough. The look on his face, though, is worrying. It may be that Cas is reading Sam wrong, but it seems that when Sam’s body was suffering, his mind was more at ease. Cas has no idea how to address this.

Neither does Dean, and that is a different problem. Cas is always on firmer ground with Dean’s emotions. Right now, it’s easy to see he’s conflicted. He wants to trust the witches who’ve helped them, but sometimes it seems that they know even less about social niceties than Cas, and it’s clear that Sam is more of a patient to them than a person. Cas can understand the desire to stay distant, to be objective, but Dean has never been able to tolerate neutrality. For him the world consists of loved ones, enemies, and people he hasn’t met. Either he acts to support or to block someone, but there’s no such thing as standing by and watching, not in Dean’s world. 

Cas remembers how suspicious Dean was of him at first, when he still trying to preserve his own objectivity, how he demanded that Cas make a decision, stand with or against him. For Cas the issue encompassed everything - it was military, political, moral, familial, philosophical, it was cosmic - but Dean stubbornly insisted on the personal. He wouldn’t let himself or his brother be reduced to symbols or tools. He wouldn’t let Cas be reduced to that, either. It’s an infectious way of thinking. The witches can try their best to stay aloof, but Cas suspects that if they stick around, they’ll be converted, too.

For the moment, though, Dean can’t decide if they’re friends or foes, and he can clearly see his brother is being healed, but he doesn’t like the overall effect it’s having on Sam’s psychological state. Dean seems unsure of what he should do. He’s trying to restrain himself and not smother Sam. Dean watches him but looks away quickly, before Sam notices, or walks through the bunker asking where he is, and then doesn’t actually follow it up by saying anything to Sam himself. The whole point is that Sam will not see the effort Dean is making, but Cas sees it, and he appreciates it in his place.

Fortunately, Dean does have one distraction. He’s always been Cas’ teacher when it comes to humanity, and now that job has taken on a new dimension. Being human isn’t easy, but Cas rarely has time to dwell on the difficult parts. Whether it’s “c’mon Cas, let’s see how much booze human-you can handle,” or “oh, you think it tastes good now, but try it with hot sauce!”, Dean comes up with one new idea after another to show him how good having a human body can be. If he thinks of all that’s happened, if he wants to talk to Dean about the future, or about the past, even if he just wants to thank him, Dean cuts him off and says, “Later, Cas. First we gotta concentrate on getting Sam better.” Occasionally Cas feels he should attempt again, but the truth is, he doesn’t feel up to tackling any problems now either. Dean is being kind to him, and sometimes he unintentionally makes Dean laugh, and for the moment, they can just be each other’s distractions. Until Sam gets better.

****************************************

When Cas comes into the kitchen, a cabinet door is open, and a plate is falling out of it. He lurches forward to catch it - but he doesn’t need to. Because it’s not falling. It’s flying across the room, to where Lys has a hand outstretched and an embarrassed look on her face.

“Damn. Didn’t really want you to see that.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.” It’s an impressive amount of power to be wielded so casually.

“Yeah, well - I normally don’t, but apparently you guys can’t remember that there are people here under six feet. Which, by the way, is kind of a dick move on your part.”

“Kevin can reach,” Cas protests.

“Kevin drags over a chair.” Lys is spreading peanut butter on her bread now, supernatural powers tucked away again in favor of a common butter knife. Eating is something Cas has come to like, but making food is such a long process, especially when you’re already hungry. He could have opened cabinets like Lys, before. He could have just caused a sandwich to appear.

“I used to be able to do that,” he blurts out.

“Congratulations,” Lys snarks, but Cas is used to that.

“Were you born with that ability? Or was it learned?”

“Learned. Why?” She glances up warily, then raises an eyebrow. Cas isn’t sure what his face is showing, but she’s read something there. She holds up the peanut butter. “Hungry?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Sit down, I’ll make you a sandwich.”

Cas pulls out a chair. For a minute, they’re quiet. Then, head down, still working on his sandwich, Lys says, “This would be harder to do with magic.”

“Oh?” Sometimes Dean starts speaking about a seemingly random topic, but if you wait, he’ll get around to the point. This is probably like that.

“A lot of things are. It’s mental effort, but a lot of times that’s trickier than physical force. Of course, the easiest way to do something is to get someone else to do it for you.” She slides the sandwich over to him. It’s not his favorite, but it’ll do. “Sometimes demons work with witches. It’s tempting because you get a lot of power very quickly, but of course, none of it is yours. It’s only on loan for as long as you’re useful to them, and all the while, your natural strength is fading away. Then one day you’re all used up, and they turn on you and tear you apart. Young witches have to have it drilled into them, over and over - there is no free lunch.”

Cas looks down at his sandwich. “I understand.”

“Do you? From what I hear you’ll do just about anything to get your hands on power, and that was when you had plenty of your own.”

It’s a valid question, but he takes it personally. “It was never the power, not for its own sake. I thought - I had things I needed to do. It was a tool I wanted to use.”

Lys shrugs, eyes cold. “Yeah, well, based on your track record, I’m glad you’re almost powerless.”

“Almost?”

She points at his sandwich. “Are you eating that?” Mechanically, he takes another bite, and she continues, “Well, you’re human, I assume you have the same basic power that any human does. It’s not anything like what you used to have, but... Shouldn’t you know all about the occult?”

No, he thinks, for the same reason that I don’t know about human architecture or television. I was busy fighting a war. “I knew some humans studied it. It didn’t seem important.” It does now. “You said all humans can do magic?”

“A little bit, yeah.” She shoots him a wary look. “Want to try some?”

****************************************

A quarter of an hour later, Dean wanders into the room. “Anybody seen Sammy?”

“Last I saw he and Kate were headed back to the library,” Lys volunteers.

Dean nods, but makes no move in that direction. Instead, he drops into the chair next to Cas. “What’s all this?”

A small, shallow bowl of water is sitting on the table between Cas and Lys, with an unlit candle standing next to it.

“Lys is teaching me magic,” Cas tells him, and Dean frowns and shifts closer.

“You think that’s a good idea, Cas? You’re just getting the hang of being human-”

“She says any human can do this. If I am human, then I should be able to do this.”

“I don’t do magic, and I get along just fine.”

Lys laughs, breaking Dean’s gaze, and gives him a little wave. “Except when you bust in on people like me to bail you out.”

Dean bristles, but Cas is not in the mood to sit through around round of the posturing and arguing these two do. He’s learning this if he has to do it himself. He stretches his hand out over to water, and even though he can’t feel any answering surge of power, he intones, “I command you to become ice.”

Nothing happens except another sudden burst of laughter from Lys. “Ooookay. No, Cas. Definitely not.”

“It’s always worked before,” he answers, slightly insulted.

“Maybe so, I don’t know. But that’s not how it works for humans.”

Cas almost expects Dean to try to keep arguing, but it looks like he’s interested in the outcome as well. He’s sticking close, though.

“What do I need to do?”

“Okay, first? Remember you’ve got a physical side now. Celestial intent isn’t gonna cut it. You need supplies.”

“But you said yourself these are just props to focus the will. If your will was strong enough-”

“Oh I’m sorry, is this your life’s work? Quit lecturing me. I know that, that’s the point. Your will is IN your body now, not just wearing it like a glove. If you break that connection, you die. That’s what dying is. So unless you want to figure out where dead not-angels go, you’re gonna have to get your hands dirty.”

Dean shifts in irritation beside him, but Cas nods. “Alright.”

“You’re doing a spell that’s trying to cause ice. In other words, draw out energy from the water in the form of heat. So you don’t need a spell that commands - that puts power into something. You need a spell that calls, calls the energy out.”

“Heat, I call you out of the water.”

Again, nothing but another peal of laughter from the increasingly annoying witch across the table.

“No, what did I just say? That doesn’t work. You’re still commanding, just in different words.”

“Then I still don’t understand.”

“You’re trying to push power out of yourself, when what you want is to draw it in. We need to focus your idea of heat - for that we need physical things - and then cause you to want that idea - that’ll be your words.”

“It sounds complicated.”

“Normally, no, it’s not. Humans have pretty standard reactions to certain things. There’s only so many ways a body experiences heat.” She pauses, and a speculative gleam comes into her eye. “I have no idea if you’ll have the same associations, though. It’s actually pretty fascinating.”

“I’m a scientific curiosity to you.”

“I mean, you seem like an alright guy... but fuck yeah I’m taking notes.”

Cas shrugs. “I suppose that’s only fair.”

“Okay, so,” Lys says, leaning forward in excitement. “This is easy, the first real spell most kids ever do. All we need is a candle. You focus on the flame, blow it out, and say the spell. Easy. The thing is, there’s a poetics to a spell. It needs to feel right, feel beautiful. It’s expressing your will. No assembly-line spell ever has the power of one you write for yourself, because that’s your expression. So especially in your case, if better words come to mind, use them.”

“Alright.”

“Here, I’ll demonstrate.” Lys flicks the lighter she always carries, lights the candle, then stretches her right hand out over the water. Her eyes stay trained on the flame as she says, “I’m in the dark, I need your light. I’m in the cold, I need your warmth. I need you.” She says it softly, with expression, like she’s talking to a real person, then leans forward and puffs out the candle. A cracking sound draws Cas’ eyes to the bowl, and he watches as crystals form and thicken into a solid block of ice.

Next to him, Dean’s leaned over so far that he’s hanging over Cas’ shoulder to see. He laughs quietly, and says, “Gotta admit, it’s pretty cool.” The rules of personal space apparently no longer apply, but they weren't ever Cas' rules anyway. He won't mention it.

Beside the bowl, a flame is flickering. Cas frowns. “We didn’t intend to light the candle.”

“Yeah, but, you know, as one of the great masters said, ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.’”

That principle sounds familiar. “Who was that?”

“Isaac Newton.”

Dean scoffs. “He was a witch?”

“Oh yeah,” Lys nods. “Big-time alchemist. He revolutionized the practice.”

“Why’d people stop doing alchemy, anyway?”

She laughs. “They didn’t. Chemistry and potion-based spellwork weren’t even separate subjects until... oh, sometime around the Enlightenment. Half the symbols they use are still the same. Newton wrote more about the occult than he did about physics. He’s the one that finally figured out how to make the philosopher’s stone.”

“You can turn shit into gold?!”

“Yeah, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“How come?”

“Cause by the time you get all the ingredients together and run enough juice through it, the gold you get out of it only just about covers your investment in the first place. The real magic way to get something you can’t afford? Steal it.”

Dean laughs. “Yeah, that kind of hocus-pocus I’m good at.” 

“No free lunch,” Cas quotes, and Dean shoots him an amused look.

“Where’d you hear that?” But explaining his earlier conversation with Lys would take him into one of the many topics that he and Dean don’t talk about, and maybe they should, but not now, with everyone sitting around getting along.

“Theoretically Dean could do magic too?” Cas asks.

Lys nods, but her face is skeptical. “Yeah, but... even in a pre-made tool like an exorcism, if you lose focus it doesn’t work. You have to be able to really concentrate to do anything open-ended. A kid trying this ice trick, for instance, would probably have spent a few years learning to meditate beforehand, just staring into a candle flame like this. But from what you said, it sounds like as an angel you were basically one big concentrated thought. I figured I could skip the primary-school stuff. Give it a shot.”

Cas lights the candle, holds out his hand, repeats the words, and blows the candle out. Nothing happens. He realizes he’s been holding his breath, and lets it out with a frustrated sigh.

Dean squeezes his neck by the shoulder, forearm pressing lengthwise into his back, and shakes him a little in what Cas has learned is affection. “Hey, don’t worry about it, buddy.”

“How do you feel?” Lys asks.

“I don’t know. How am I supposed to feel? How do you feel?”

Lys smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Cas wishes he were experienced enough to read that expression. “Um, I’m a little further along. I’m just doing all that with the candle and the words for your benefit.” As if to underscore her point, she melts the ice with a touch.

“How did you feel the first time you did it, then?” he persists, and again Lys makes a friendly grimace at him. 

“I don’t remember. Keep in mind I grew up around spellwork. Apparently I imitated every spell I saw from the time I could sit up. Nobody knows when I really started, but they discovered I could cast for real when I was four. This is the only thing I can do, but I can do it damn well.”

“And so humble, too,” Dean mutters.

Not this again. Cas intervenes before Lys can come up with a comeback. “Quiet, let me concentrate.”

It silences them, and they both lean forward, eager to see what he’s going to do. Dean tightens his fingers just slightly against Cas’ shoulder, and now, with this intense attention making him self-conscious, Cas has absolutely no focus at all. His thoughts drift to the warmth of Dean’s arm and his breathing next to him, distracting and grounding at once, something he tries to drink in when he can, considering how many times he’s sure he’s lost it for good, another thing he's trying not think about - and then he has an idea. 

Cas lights the candle, but instead of directing his focus to its light, he concentrates on the warmth on his back. He thinks of every time he lost that security, and how much he depends on it now. He tells the candle, “I’m in the dark, I need your light. I’m in the cold, I need your warmth. I need you.” 

The moment he blows it out, it sparks back to life. There is ice in the bowl under his hand. Dean’s laughing and slapping his back, Lys is nodding proudly, but Cas is a little stunned. It worked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 - What Lys says is true - chemistry is actually directly descended from alchemy and still uses some of the methods it developed and its symbols. Isaac Newton did a lot of alchemy, as well as tried to calculate the date of the end of the world through studying the Bible, etc., and he spent at least as much time in this kind of occult work as he did in physics. The sciences were just developing at the time.


	7. Charlie

So for like a minute, Charlie was jealous. She’s gone for how long and the Winchesters pick themselves up another cute wisecracking chick to do crazy dangerous stuff with? She’s not that replaceable!

Then she actually got there and met the witches, though. Lys is smart, obviously, but she’s no Hermione. She’s more like the unholy spawn of a Hermione/Snape fanfic or something. Eeep. Kate’s more laid-back, but she doesn’t do a lot of joking around with the guys, either. She is cute, though.

Actually, if Kate hangs out with anybody but Lys, it’s usually Charlie. The boys want her to get this angel-tracking thing up and running, and Kate’s usually got like, potions to brew or something, but if they’ve got free time, they usually end up playing a game on her laptop together. Well - Charlie plays, Kate hangs over her shoulder like she’s fascinated. You’d think she never saw a computer before. Apparently Lys “doesn’t care about technology”. They don’t even have a TV! Heathens.

Charlie isn’t normally a fan of having someone breathing down her neck like that, but with Kate it’s okay. She thinks everything Charlie does is awesome, laughs at all her jokes, and she smells really good. Okay, Charlie might have a little bit of a crush. That’s cool, cause it kinda seems like she’s not the only one. She’s gonna give it a little more time to make sure, though. If Charlie came on to her and got shot down, breakfast in the bunker would get super awkward.

*************************************

Whatever Lys’ day job is, she’s starting to get in trouble for being away so long. Charlie keeps catching the tail ends of phone conversations she has where she says stuff like, “no, it’s still gonna take a while” and “I know, I know, but what am I supposed to do about it?” Then they stop - and Lys starts disappearing from the bunker for a few hours every evening.

Dean immediately goes into panic mode, wanting to follow her and see where she goes. Charlie finds out before he can, though, using her super-spy skills to figure it out by... just asking. Not Lys directly, cause she’s still kinda scary. She just brings it up to Kate one evening.

“Hey, where’s Lys tonight?”

Kate leans in conspiratorially, which, yeah, Charlie needs to get her to spill secrets more often. “Don’t tell her I told you. She’s teaching some classes at the community college.”

“What, like tai chi?”

Kate giggles. Oh, Charlie’s so in. “No, like... magic classes. Serious witches study for a long time, and we’ve got kind of a university system. Lys is a professor back home.”

“Oh my God, Hogwarts is real.”

“There’s a lot less... special effects, but there are schools, yeah,” Kate says, grinning at Charlie’s look of delight.

“I wanna see.”

“It’s just boring lectures,” Kate protests, but she’s talking to a hacker. Charlie is all about looking into things she’s not supposed to see. If Lys wanted to keep it a secret, she shouldn’t have been so damn secretive.

“C’mon, please? Pretty please? Just let me sit in once.”

And because Charlie’s irresistible, Kate agrees.

****************************************

Apparently the school doesn’t even know these classes are going on, and they intend to keep it that way. The room Lys has commandeered is in the basement, as far away as the rest of the night classes as you can get. There’s a single piece of white construction paper taped up over the glass window in the door. In purple marker, it says, “Rocket Science”. It’s decorated with little five-pointed stars in circles - little pentagrams.

Kate laughs and shrugs. “What do you want it to say, “Witchcraft 101”?” 

She carefully eases the door open, and they slip into the back. Lys is pacing back and forth in front. The room’s basically packed. 

Kate leans over to whisper, “Most of them are from out of town. Lys is a big deal.”

Speak of the devil - she looks up then, and narrows her eyes as she sees them. Kate shrugs, and Lys shakes her head slightly like she’s pissed, but she doesn’t stop talking.

“It’s important to remember your work is not a reflection of your self. I know you’ve been hearing mystical try-hard bullshit about pure hearts your whole life, but the truth is, the tools work for anybody that knows how to use ‘em. It’s just that they work on you too. Rule number one of witchcraft - I bet even our little savant here knows it. Right?”

A kid in the front row shrinks a little lower in his seat, but his voice carries confidently.

“Reciprocity. Whatever you do comes back to you karmically.”

“Well, with less patchouli and more science, but yes. Nice job, muggle.”

The class giggles, and Charlie whispers, “WTF?”

Kate winces sympathetically and whispers, “His parents are just Wiccans who got ahold of the wrong book. He’s self-taught, supposed to be some kind of a genius. Lys won’t let it go.”

The front-row kid won’t either.

“Bitch,” he mutters.

The room suddenly gets very quiet. Lys stands over him with a face that dares him, no, asks him delightedly to make her day by repeating himself.

“What’d you say?”

“I said, BITCH.”

Roughly half the class covers their ears or eyes. Charlie totally doesn’t duck behind Kate. Lys just laughs loudly.

“Alright, Mr. Harrison, I’ll admit that’s accurate.”

Everyone stares.

“What? I am a bitch. Gold star, Mr. Harrison, for having the balls to say it. Why’s that a good thing, class?” 

In a movie, Charlie thinks, this would be the moment for the chirping crickets sound effect.

“Because of reciprocity! The bigger the spell, the bigger the effect on yourself. You all know I work in the big leagues, and that means you have a civic duty to call me out if you get worried about the way I’m heading. Trust me, I can handle criticism. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t deserve the job. But like, oh, absolutely everything, it’s a two-way street. Get undisciplined in your spellwork, start taking shortcuts and I will personally hunt your little asses down and make you very, very sorry you didn’t take better notes in class. So as I was saying - ah, that’s right, nothing like the threat of violence to get the pencils moving -”

The lecture goes on after that, but after that little bit of excitement, Charlie realizes Kate’s right, it’s actually kinda boring. She ends up starting a poke war that only stops when Lys gives them another death glare.

Finally, it’s over. Kate heads down front, and Charlie follows, but Lys doesn’t have time for them just yet.

“Mr. Harrison, hang on a minute.”

The kid’s face is like the definition of “sorry not sorry”. Charlie crosses her fingers for the poor guy.

“Listen, I’m sorry...”

“Yeah, you should be, it took me forever to get a rise out of you. Now: would you like a job?”

He’s obviously confused. “What?”

“Oh, come off it, you’re a genius and you know it. Of course I want you working for me, but I meant what I said, kid. I need people who aren’t afraid to call me out. I was starting to think you wouldn’t dare.”

“Okay... What do you want me to do?”

“You’re not a good fit here. You know things grad students are just piecing together, but then again you’re missing half the basics. Your perspective is too different from everyone else’s. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It makes you creative. But you’re no good if you’re explaining your research in hippy-dippy terms that are inaccurate at best. So I want you to drop out, and I want you to come and work for me. As an apprentice.”

The kid’s eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Wow.”

“Alright. Cool. Well you can throw out that notebook, then. Go home, take the rest of the semester off, get your shit in order, and I’ll be in touch.”

“Okay... Okay, thanks... Bye...”

He backs away, grinning like a lunatic. Kate’s eyes are huge.

“Seriously?”

“What?! The kid’s a fucking Leonardo da Vinci - don’t tell him that. Hell yeah I want my fingerprints on him.”

Kate snorts.

“Not like that, you pervert.” 

Kate turns to Charlie to explain. “This is a big deal. Apprenticeships are the old-fashioned way to learn. They’re literally medieval. You work for someone for seven years, they teach you everything they know, and then they cut you loose. Almost nobody does it anymore. But Lys is a big fan, apparently.”

“Hey, like I said, the guy’s a fucking genius. The stuff he does, it’s not just that it works, it’s not just that it’s innovative - although, I mean he’s self-taught, that would be enough - it’s beautiful, too. He’s an artist. He’s a concert pianist who can’t even read sheet music, does it all by ear. Fucking gorgeous. So I’m going to make the kid’s life miserable for seven years, and hopefully he’ll come out of it one of the finest minds of the age.” She shrugs her shoulders with amused nonchalance. Then she pauses. “Seriously, though - you’re not jealous, right?”

“Not really,” Kate says. “Just so long as I’m still your favorite.”

“Obviously,” Lys says, throwing an arm around her shoulders. Honestly, Charlie’s a just a little creeped out. Lys doesn’t normally act like she cares about anybody. Then she points at Charlie. “And you: don’t say anything to the guys. I don’t want any of my kids here getting mixed up in their crazy. And I don’t need any more class disruptions from you either.”

Charlie tosses off something like a salute. “Yes ma’am.”

***********************************

She does tell Dean what Lys is doing, though, just so he chills. “It’s mega-boring, though. Trust me. I went and checked it out.”

“Did you follow her?” he asks.

“No, I just asked Kate. She can’t resist me,” she says, grinning at him.

Dean’s eyebrows shoot way up. Charlie’s made him look like that before, but then he kind of laughed and nodded, like good for her. Now he looks pretty upset.

“Uh... you sure you’re reading that right? She’s not just being friendly?”

“I mean, I haven’t made a serious move or anything, but I’m pretty sure she’s into girls in general, at least.”

Dean shakes his head. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that too, I just thought - I mean, she’s pretty damn close to Lys. And you really don’t want to piss her off.”

“What? Nooo. Lys probably eats her mates after she’s done with them or something.” Dean’s got this look on his face like he’s thought of a dirty joke, but she doesn’t let him interrupt her. “Besides, I’m not gonna take relationship advice from you. You’re like the king of UST.”

He frowns, confused. “What the hell’s that?”

Ooops. Shouldn’t have said that. Or should she? Maybe someone should just give him a really good shove in the right direction... She leans in, turning serious - and Kate walks in. Charlie jerks back.

“Oh - am I interrupting something?” Kate asks innocently, rummaging in a cabinet.

“No!” Charlie and Dean say together.

***********************************

Seriously though, Dean is the most clueless guy ever. What does he know about relationships? The only people he’s even close to are his brother and his not-boyfriend. And yeah, obviously Lys and Kate are really close, in a “we have lots of inside jokes” kind of way, but it’s not like they’re macking on each other all over the bunker or anything. So whatever. Charlie’s still 95% certain Kate is flirting with her. But maybe she’ll hold off on making a move a little longer, until she’s up to 100%. Cause she’d really hate to get zapped by Lys.

***********************************

It’s an unofficial rule that the kitchen belongs to Dean. Lys and Kevin don’t seem to understand why anyone would ever need to eat anything more than a sandwich, Sam just leaves everything raw and calls it a salad, and Cas is still kinda getting the hang of food. Charlie, well, she’s just easily distracted, ok? She burnt one frozen pizza and Dean banned her from using the oven. Kate tried to cook once or twice, but Dean has a tendency to hover, like he’s afraid she’ll put in frog’s eyes or something. So she sticks mostly to her potion teas, and if there’s time, Dean makes dinner. 

Normally Cas will hang out in there with him, “helping”, but today he’s apparently busy with his own magic lessons. Lys says he’s a really quick study, and he’s starting to get intense about it. It’s not exactly being an angel, but it’s something, Charlie guesses. So she kept Dean company instead.

Thing is, they don’t exactly have a set dinner time. Mostly Dean and Cas just track them all down when there’s food, and whoever isn’t busy comes up and gets some. Charlie’s never realized before what a massive pain in the butt that is. They find Sam in the library, but shockingly, Kevin’s in there with him. And yeah, they’re kinda carefully ignoring each other, but that’s still an improvement. Charlie’s not sure what went down there, but those two are definitely not okay. And both of them, the two most likely to skip dinner, stand up and head for the kitchen. Victory!

Everyone else is much harder to find. None of them are in their rooms, none of them are in the showers or any of the other rooms they normally live in... They look into the storerooms, just in case the witches decided to go digging for something, but they don’t see anyone there, either. They go through every room, and there’s nobody. The only place left to look is the creepy dungeon. So they head down there.

Dean and Charlie hear them before they get to the door. The witches are definitely down here. They’re gasping like they’re out of breath. Then Kate lets out a contented moan.

“Shit, wow. That was amazing. Thank you.”

Lys laughs softly. Her voice is fond and teasing. “You say it like it’s not fun for me.”

Blarg. Dean looks like if he has to hold back his laugh any longer he’s gonna pop. “Told you,” he whispers. Charlie’s not laughing. Apparently her crush on Kate was a lot bigger than she thought, cause this stings pretty bad. And it must be written all over her face, cause Dean tries to swallow his smile and shoves at her shoulder. “Hey, sorry -”

Cas’ voice echoes from inside the room. “That was fascinating... I’d really like to try that.”

Lys sounds smug. “Thought you would.”

And just like that, Dean’s done laughing. “What the hell...” he mutters, marching straight down the hall and into the room. Charlie follows.

Lys, Kate and Cas are each sitting on a chair in a circle. Fully clothed. Not even the littlest bit sweaty. 

Dean says it before Charlie can. “What the hell are you guys doing in here?”

“Magic. It’s kind of our thing,” Lys snarks back.

“Yeah, well, it sure sounded like something else,” he blusters. The witches’ jaws drop, then twist in disgust. Cas just tilts his head like he doesn’t get it.

“You didn’t think... oh, gross!” Kate says. “That is so wrong.”

Lys shakes her head. “Not into that.”

And Kate overlaps her words, “Never, ever in a million years.”

“Oh. You thought they were engaging in sexual intercourse?”

“Congrats, you finally clued in!” Dean snaps. Ouch. He’s mean when he’s embarrassed. “What were you doing, then?”

“A spell for transferring power,” Lys says dryly. “I have more than Kate, but I can lend most of it to her. It feels good - like being on a rollercoaster. Exhilarating, not sexy.”

“Perhaps one day I could acquire more power than I currently have as a human. Even angelic power,” Cas says.

“Hang on, Napoleon. This time, before we feed your inferiority complex, we’re going to train you to use the juice you’ve got. This spell is a loan, NOT for stealing. You'd kill somebody that way. And even borrowing, you’ve got to be rock-solid to handle the extra power. Kate’s got years of experience, and we’re still down here in the dungeon in case something goes boom. For now, what I want you to learn is to give your power away.”

“He doesn’t know who Napoleon is,” Dean butts in, but Cas is shaking his head.

“I’m not just learning magic, Dean. I’m not stupid.”

Awkward... Charlie decides it’s time for her to say something nice. “Wow, you’re that far along, Cas?”

Cas just shrugs frostily. Guess his feelings were hurt. Lys is proud, though. “He really is a quick study. He can usually do things the first time. All I have to do is explain it to him right.” She prods him. “C’mon, let’s try it once. Show ‘em.”

“Alright.” 

“Okay. We don’t really know how much you’ve got to draw on. I don’t think even I could handle an angel, but with you as a human, we should be fine if you send it to me. You remember the words?”

Cas nods and turns to face Lys, deliberately avoiding looking towards Dean and Charlie. He spreads out his hands, closes his eyes, and says, “Come to me now.” Nothing happens. He scowls and opens his eyes again, glancing impatiently at Lys.

“Sum yourself up,” she prompts.

He thinks for a minute, then cuts his eyes over at the witches. “Napoleon,” he says with a sour smile. Maybe it’s Charlie’s imagination, but the air feels a little more charged. “Beethoven.” Oh, okay, there was definitely a flicker between Cas’ fingers. It’s this bluish white. “Abelard. Alexander the Great. Issa. Burroughs.” The next thing he says is weird, probably in Enochian. And then, really sure but quiet, he says, “Cas.” By now the light hurts a little to look at, and he brings his hands together, and reaches them toward Lys. Charlie doesn’t understand the next thing he says either. “Se animam efflo.”

Lys leans forward, putting her face almost in Cas’ hands, and inhales. She shudders once, smiles, and then kinda - spits the blue light back out. It slides right back into Cas’ hands, like it never was. She heaves this big sigh, and he just looks steadily back at her, a little dazed. Wow. From across the room, Kate grins at Dean and Charlie. Neither of them smile back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- The cliche is that Napoleon was so insecure that he overcompensated by conquering all of Europe. This is what Lys is referencing.
> 
> 2- "Se animam efflo" is (unless I'm wrong) Latin for "I breathe out my spirit for you." And in Latin, "to breathe out your spirit" is to die.
> 
> 3- Cas sums himself up by naming famous humans he sees a connection to, beginning, somewhat sarcastically, with Napoleon. The others are: Beethoven (the composer who eventually went deaf and wrote symphonies he could never hear), Abelard (a famous medieval scholar in his day, his forbidden romance with a brilliant female scholar led her family to castrate him, after which he renounced her, became a monk, and eventually wrote a book arguing that man will be judged not for his actions but his intentions), Alexander the Great (who turned most of the known world into his personal empire, only for it to completely fall apart the minute he died), Issa (a poet who suffered major personal tragedies but wrote wonderful, funny little haikus, lots of them about insects), and Burroughs (the writer who, while playing William Tell with his wife, accidentally shot her dead). He finishes by saying his name as an angel, and his name as Dean says it.


	8. Dean 2

Of course, the minute Cas hears about them, he wants to sit in on Lys’ lectures. She tells him he’d better not attract any attention, that he can save any questions for later - but she lets him come along. Lys is always looking at Cas like she’s making notes for later, like this is an experiment to see just how far and fast he can go. And Cas, well, he’s always been a zero-to-sixty kind of guy. He’s soaking up spells like a sponge.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing, Dean tells himself. Just about every time Cas has buddied up with someone other than the Winchesters it’s been disastrous, but hey, this time around he’s not off making his own crazy decisions, he’s in the bunker with Dean and Sam and even Kevin and Charlie there to call him out if things get weird. There’s safety in numbers. If anything, it’s the witches who’ve buddied up with them. And they’re really not so bad. Sure, Lys is bitchy, but it’s hard to really hate somebody who’s saving your brother’s life. Half the time it’s even kind of funny to piss her off, just to see her snap. 

The whole thing still makes him a little nervous, but he’s okay with it. Charlie said he was going to spy on them, but it’s really not like that. He was just bored, and annoyed that Cas wasn’t around to amuse him, and he thought he’d show up and surprise them with a ride home so they don’t have to take the bus. He’s being thoughtful, not creepy, thank you very much Ms. Bradbury.

Except Dean is apparently too dumb to even figure out the campus of a community college. He must have parked in the wrong parking lot or something, because so far he’s lurked past an art class, startled a janitor, and discovered where the dumpsters are. Yum. 

He’s making his way between some decorative trees near a chain-link fence in the back when he hears a way too fucking familiar voice. It’s smarmy, and British. Dean freezes.

“All you have to do is listen. You’re doing that already, aren’t you? Taking notes like a good little student? All I want you to do is step it up. Be the teacher’s pet. Find out as much about her as you can, and then tell me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Mmm, let’s just say I’ve got competitors too. A well-placed witch could come in handy. You’re just helping me figure out how best to... sell it to her.”

“I don’t know. If I get caught-”

“But how, darling? It’s just information. And meanwhile, your spellwork moves onto the fast track. Use the power I give you carefully and no one will ever know you’re not just talented... hardworking... Well, the teacher’s pet. No one will ever find out. Unless I do strike a deal with Alyssa, in which case, she’d be able to advance your career as well...”

“Okay.”

“Yes? We have a deal?”

“Yes.”

“You know how to seal it.”

Well, shit. Dean’s outside, no devil’s traps, no useful weapons, so attacking Crowley’s out of the question. The other voice is high and young but unfamiliar - a girl, someone taking Lys’ class. If he could just see who it was he could tell Lys, leave it to her to deal with. He could try to be subtle, hide out till Crowley is gone, then ask directions or something, get her to look at him, describe her to Lys...? No. What if Lys can’t place her? Fuck it, he’s gonna snatch her right now.

Dean gets lucky. Crowley turns and walks away, but the girl heads straight toward his trees, maybe trying to take a short cut to the far parking lot he just came from. He lets her come right up to him, scrubbing absentmindedly at her mouth with her shirtsleeve, and then he jumps out and slams a hand around her mouth before she can scream. He might not have any demon-killing weapons, but his gun will do fine on a human, and he shows it to her before pressing it up against her head. 

“Make a sound and you’re dead. And don’t you dare try any magic shit either, I’ll know it if I see it.”

She’s like maybe a hundred pounds, just some college kid, and magic would be her only chance against him. Truth is, Dean wouldn’t shoot her even if she did start saying a spell, but he can make a damn good bluff. She nods - silently. Dean lowers the gun to her side, but keeps his hand over her mouth, just in case. They hustle to the parking lot, her stumbling to keep up with his longer steps. And after a little work with the duct tape he’s got stashed in the Impala, into the trunk she goes.

Two stoplights from home, a cruising cop car pulls up alongside Dean. He keeps his face carefully blank. His game of tag with law enforcement should be over now, but the very worst way for anyone to discover he’s still kicking around would be with a college girl locked in his trunk. The cop glances over, and for a minute their eyes meet - and the guy smiles vaguely, politely, and looks away again. The light turns green, and for a minute Dean almost has to laugh. Damn, he’s good. Then he makes the turn toward the bunker, and his mood shifts. So he’d make an outstanding serial killer. What an accomplishment.

Dean drags the kid to the door, trying to be gentle despite the fact that she’s freaking out and starting to fight now. He gets it, it’s pretty deserted and creepy-looking at night.

“Hey, stop, I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m just taking you to Lys, alright?”

She just struggles harder at that, giving him a vicious kick in the shins. 

“Ow! Jesus.”

He pushes her in in front of him. Cas is standing there, stopped in the act of coming to greet him.

“Dean? What’s going on?”

“Get Lys.”

************************************

Lys is angry, outraged on the part of her student, for just as long as it takes Dean to get one sentence out. He says the words “Crowley” and “deal”, and she turns away. “Lock her up,” she says to the room in general.

Which makes sense, so Dean pushes the girl forward again, but then Lys turns back and points at him. “Not you. You come with me.”

Normally, he’d say fuck no on principle. She doesn’t get to boss him around. The look on her face right now is pretty messed up, though. He can’t tell whether she’s about to cry or kill someone. He follows her to her room. She pushes a chair at him, locks the door, and drops to face him on her bed. “Now tell me exactly what you head.”

It’s like she doesn’t believe him. She keeps demanding, “You’re sure?” And yeah, it happened less than an hour ago. He’s sure.

When she hears that, she turns and punches into the bed beside her. “Goddamnit!” she hisses. The intensity’s starting to freak Dean out a little.

“Hey, it did literally no damage. I get that you’re pissed, but this could be a lot worse.”

“Not for that kid,” she answers. “I told you hereditary witches don’t deal with demons. We’re dead fucking serious about that. The punishment if you do is death.”

Now it’s his turn to not believe her. “But nothing happened. It didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Doesn’t matter. Demons love to tempt, and this is the only deterrent we have. Every little kid knows it doesn’t matter how or why or what for, if you make a deal, you die. Otherwise we’d all be corrupt.”

Yeah, Dean doesn’t really care what the witches think, he marched that kid here and it wasn’t for her death. Not happening. Not while she’s under his roof. “No. You are not going to kill her.”  
 “Not me. But I have to report her.”

“No, Lys. You’re not doing that. That kid didn’t do anything near bad enough for anyone to think about killing her.”

“She would have, eventually. That’s how they get to you, they start out harmless and then the next thing you know you’re murdering people.”

“You mean like you and your buddies are about to do to her? Fuck, Lys, you wanna talk about evil, that’s evil. How are you even considering this?” Just when you think you can trust someone, they show you their ugly side. Happens every time.

She looks down. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Bullshit. You’re the fucking queen of darkness or whatever, aren’t you? You don’t like the rule, why don’t you just change it?”

Lys snaps her head up, face twisted in anger. “You have no idea, not a damn clue how far the fuck out on a limb I am right now for you and your brother. Push it just a little bit more and you’re gonna lose an ally.”

“Is that a threat? You gonna turn on us, huh?”

“No, I’ll be lucky if I’m not killed under the same damn ruling!”

There’s more to this situation than he knows, and Dean should find it out. It isn’t easy, but he reins himself in, like tugging back a guard dog, and he tries to be calm. “Why?”

Lys doesn’t do him the same courtesy. “Forget it, Dean, just fuck off. Let me handle my business. I’ll make it through to fix your brother, that’s all you need to know.”

“Hey.” He puts his hands up placatingly. “That’s not why I was asking. You’re right, I have no fucking idea what’s going on right now. I don’t understand you, or what you want to do, or what your problem is - at all. So clue me in.”

Lys sighs heavily. “I’m not that popular in certain circles, alright? My - succession or whatever, it wasn’t the most clear-cut.”

He just makes a face like, well, go on.

“With the Three, it’s not like the parents just hand the title on to their kids. It’s more like - if you’re good enough, the job’s open to you. But the best families have been doing this a really long time, and their kids are bred to it. So really you’ve got like, maybe three to eight candidates each time, and most of the time, they’ll all have grown up together. A natural leader usually emerges when they’re kids, so it’s not usually a problem. This time around... My grandmother was like me - the, uh, “crone”. My mom wasn’t. She was bitter, and she kept away from the others, taught me alone. When my grandmother died, everyone thought they knew who the successor would be, and she didn’t expect to be challenged.” Lys shrugs. “I challenged. I won. Not everyone was happy about it.”

“And when you say ‘not happy’, you mean...”

“Like there’s been suspicion following me around from the beginning. My family is powerful, always have been, always in a dark way, so it makes sense that I would be, but... I didn’t know this, but my mom made some deals of her own.”

Holy shit. “You told?”

“No! I was a teenager, I didn’t know. I probably should have, though.... she was, uh, not always nice. The point is, she never involved me - but she could have. I was old enough. And I went far fast, and young... And now - I fucked off without explanation, then I showed up to the biggest ceremony of the year with Satan’s favorite suit wearing my mark on his hand and tried to do a fucking claiming spell on him, which is so fucked up-”

“You said it didn’t do anything.”

“It didn’t. But if it had, it would have put me in the middle of any magical shit that happened to him. I would have taken his place. People cast it for their kids, their grandparents, a non-witch lover... people you have to be ready to die to protect, cause that spell means you might. And I know you’re cool with just about anybody dying for your brother, but for my world, even if it didn’t work, just the fact that I was playing around with a big league, big commitment spell like that... The witch with the most affinity for black magic in our entire community is suddenly good buddies with the guy groomed to lead the armies of hell? That’s like China and Russia suddenly merging and telling the rest of Asia not to worry about it. Lots of people aren’t real happy about me, and that’s without them knowing that I also let Mr. Slimy King Demon back out into the world unharmed. I’m skating right on the fucking edge of demon-dealing as it is. I can’t go any further, Dean. It’s not about that kid - I can’t cut myself any more slack. I’m already halfway down a slippery fucking slope.”

Now, wait, Dean thinks. We just went from how everybody else feels about her to “I can’t cut myself any more slack”. He’s pretty sure Lys isn’t scared to take anybody on, or she wouldn’t have started doing crazy shit for Sam in the first place. This isn’t about the Winchesters pushing her to do anything, either. She had the whole library promised to her anyway; she could have just shrugged and said she couldn’t help them. They don’t need to have a sharing and caring moment about it, but Dean’s pretty sure she’s actually their friend. This is about Lys herself, trying to keep on the straight and narrow when everything she was ever taught was crooked. 

And Dean can relate. Just look at the skills he’s been using today - spying, threatening, kidnapping - shit he’s been good at since he was the age of that kid he abducted. You say you meant it for the best, but everybody always says that. You want to draw a line and say here is the thing I won’t do, the thing that keeps me good, and then you step right over it. Yeah, Dean can relate.

“I wonder what my dad would have thought about this.”

“What?” Her voice is guarded.

“It was so simple when I was a kid. There were monsters, there were innocent people, and in the middle there was us, killing the one, saving the other. Easy. Thing is, it’s not, really. I knew this vampire for a while who was really - decent. Hell, I’ve been a vampire myself, I know how it is. And there are sure some worthless excuses for human beings, too. My dad was a lot of things, but he was no fool. He must have known things were more complicated than he let on when I was growing up. I wonder how he’d have come down on you.”

Lys fixes him with a cold look. “My mother would have killed you with one hand. And I could, too.”

Dean laughs without humor. “Yeah, my dad was the shoot first, ask questions later type too. But here we are,” he spreads out his hands, “and nobody’s dead yet.”

Lys shrugs, placated. “We’re not our parents.”

“Yeah, but they’re in us. They are.”

Lys scoffs. “I’m nothing like my mother.”

“Yeah? Didn’t you just get done telling me you’re isolated and unpopular? Doing borderline shit you know people wouldn’t approve of? Not to mention you’re about to cause someone’s death.”

“I’m not dealing with demons!”

“Yeah, okay, if that’s all that matters to you. Listen, I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, and making a deal for Sam’s right up there. If I hadn’t gone to Hell - well, a lot of things would have been different. But I can’t say I’m sorry. I’ve never been sorry. I did it for Sam, and I’d do it again. And hey, I guess I kind of did, cause I was pretty damn convinced you were evil when I showed up at your door.”

“I’m not,” but she’s quiet now. She’s not sure about that.

“You’re not,” Dean’s voice is steady. “And I’m not my dad. But I swear, every time I’m on a hunt, I use things he taught me. The shit he drilled into me has saved my life more times than I can count. He’s been dead for years and I still wonder what he’d think if he were here. And I swore to myself I wouldn’t, but I’ve made plenty of his mistakes, too. Told Sammy never to come back, been too hard on a boy that was kinda like my son... yeah, and I drink too much when I get down, too, just like him. He’s in me, the good and the bad, and that’s just the way it is. And I bet it’s the same way with you. It doesn’t look to you like you’re making her mistakes?”

“I don’t want to.” Lys swallows hard. “You have to know I don’t want that kid hurt. I’m just trying not to fuck up.”

“Okay, well,” he smiles wryly, “I can’t promise you that. But we can at least try to fuck up in our own ways, huh?”

“We?”

“You giving up on the idea of murder?”

Lys frowns, for a minute, then says slowly, “If we blocked her from doing magic again - she could live, but be like an exile... We’d need an unbreakable spell, three strands from three people... or maybe seven...” She’s working on the puzzle, now. Dean’s won her over. And maybe it’ll turn out to have been the wrong choice, but right now, it feels right, and that’s all he’s got to go on.

Before she can get totally lost in the details, he reaches out and thumps her on the shoulder. “Okay. Then we’ve got your back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Witch society is a lot like European society, if you turned the clock back many hundreds of years...
> 
> 1- The politics and the way the succession can go to any likely candidate is based on the Holy Roman Empire, where lots of little royal kingdoms jockeyed to get their king elected emperor. That struggle could lead to violence, but just as often it didn't, especially when there was an obviously dominant figure. 
> 
> 2- The automatic death penalty punishment is pretty much the standard English punishment until at least the mid-1700's. Murder? Death! Treason? Death! Gay sex? Death! Pickpocketing? Death! The belief was that the harshness would frighten people away from the crime. It didn't actually seem to have any effect, though.


	9. Lys 2

Apparently being in charge of shit means you have to sign off on things, and make your presence known, and look important and all kinds of other shit Lys hates. Fortunately, Allan agreed to handle all her paperwork - if she’d only teach a few classes while she was out here. Teaching is one of her favorite parts of the job, anyway. It seemed like a good deal at the time.

Her classes are packed with serious faces. They’re constantly listening for clues, and they’re probably not the only ones. Lys is almost certain there’s an investigator or two out there among the crowd, watching and waiting for signs she’s gone bad. She doesn’t ever leave a lecture without double-checking to make sure she’s not being followed back to the bunker, and she never leaves it for any other reason. It’s fucking exhausting. 

And then she lost a student to a demon. That’s never happened before. Keeping it a secret was never an option, but she did risk a delay. For three days, she and Kate sat in the library, weaving the framework of a master spell to bind the kid from doing any more magic. When it was finished, they had a basic formula, with gaps for seven separate spells from seven separate witches, each independently written and cast while alone, so no one would ever hear the full spell, or have any idea where to start unravelling it. In her own humble opinion, Lys thinks it’s a damn impressive piece of work. Hopefully impressive enough that they’ll decide to use it on the kid instead of executing her. Allan is supposed to argue her case back east. That’s as close as Lys can go without putting her own neck on the line. She can’t tell if she did too much - or too little. It nags at her, prickles her in bed at night. She’ll be fine, Lys tells herself, and then adds, and you’ll be fine too. They don’t even know where the bunker is.

So yeah, shit’s complicated. Sometimes she wonders why she was crazy enough to challenge for this job anyway.

Today, Lys is going to remind herself. She’s up early, pulling on her jacket and grabbing her bag. The bunker is still, and for just a minute she thinks she’s gonna get lucky and slip out of here without anyone knowing. But then, because Lys can’t catch a fucking break, Cas’ door opens.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Out.”

Cas frowns. “Dean told me you might be in trouble. If you need help-”

“Then I wouldn’t ask you,” she cuts him off, and then watches his face do that why-are-humans-so-cruel look he wears half the time around her. Dammit. “I have something important to do.”

She shouldn’t have said that. Cas perks right up. “Can I come with you?”

She tries to play it off. “It’ll suck... I’m going to like, hospitals, old folks’ homes. Not any place anybody wants to be.”

He doesn’t respond like she expected. Cas goes quiet, and nods seriously. “I would very much like to come along. Please.”

It’s probably a mistake, but something in his stance makes her say yes.

***************************************

Some of these places don’t care who you are, some of them will only let family members through. It doesn’t matter. Lys is listed as the grandchild of every elderly witch in the country.

They don’t know her. They wouldn’t know their real grandchildren, if they have any. She introduces herself, but after that, she answers to any name they choose to call her. And then she sits, listens, nods, smiles, laughs, answers with the appropriate pleasantries at the same points in the same story told three times in succession. They tell her about their college days or about the soap opera they watched yesterday, and sometimes they probably mix the two. There’s no hard facts here, but they’re not what Lys is after. Every mind is like an ocean, deeper and wider than she can ever go, but for a while, she lets their currents take her. She loses track of time while they sweep past some things, circle around and around others, and she gets to know them by the way they flow. Lys has never seen infinity, but here at the end of everything, she can get a little glimpse of a lifespan, and that’s plenty big enough.

Lys tells Cas to keep his mouth shut. The first guy they see, though, takes Cas for a doctor and starts asking him direct questions. Lys cringes, but Cas just goes with it, giving vague, positive answers in a kind of polite half-shout so the old man can hear him. Then Cas says something about hospital food that sounds almost like a joke. Lys doesn’t get it, but the old man laughs.

When they’re alone in the hall, Lys says, “So... obviously sometimes they think things that aren’t true...”

Cas just shrugs, totally unfazed by the whole thing. “It was true for him at the time.”

After several visits, Lys decides Cas isn’t rattled by old age or sickness or scattered minds because it’s all foreign to him. It probably hasn’t sunk in yet that he’s got to age too. Then he leans back against the wall in the elevator, watching the lights for the floors blink upwards, and says, “It would be comforting to know someone will do this for me some day.” 

Cheer up, you probably won’t live that long, Lys just barely stops herself from saying. Instead she just awkwardly shrugs. “Yeah.”

The thing is, Cas isn’t just cool with this, he’s good at it. Lys smiles and listens and nods, sure, but even she can’t give off the vibe Cas has going, all solid and calm and understanding, like he actually gets it, like he’s been there, which is impossible.

“So is this like, an angel talent? The bedside manner?”

Cas smiles strangely, like he’s remembering a secret. “No. I would say demons are better at this kind of thing.”

Lys finds that pretty damn hard to believe. “But it doesn’t freak you out, being here.”

Ah, there it is, the head tilt again. “Why would it? I’ve been here before and I will be again. This is a part of human life.”

“You’ve never been old.”

“No. But I’ve been weakened, and unsure of my own mind. I’ve been in places something like this. And even now, for all that I enjoy in humanity, I’m... reduced. So I think I ‘get it’.”

“Oh really,” Lys says, unaccountably annoyed.

“Yes. Except for one thing - I don’t know why you do this.”

He won’t understand, of course. But the teacher in her, always itching to lecture, can’t help but give explaining a shot. First off, because it really is in her job description. But second, because the people she visits are coming up on what she’d tell her students is a “liminal time”. As a child, when she didn’t know how she knew, she called them “the edges”. Birth and death, sunrise and sunset, the solstices, all these little gaps between what’s been and what’s coming, she always felt different then, even before she knew the explosive potential that’s in them. These rest home invalids stand on an edge, and Lys comes to hang her toes over too, and dissolve for a while into something bigger than she’ll ever be able to understand. To some people that might be frightening, but Lys is all sharp edges herself, anyway. To her it feels like home. 

“I see,” Cas says, nodding like he really does.

“Seriously?”

“I was confused. You told me you drew power from this, but you don’t, not really.”

“Not mechanically, no.”

“Your power comes from yourself, like you tell me mine should. But that requires a clear sense of self. ‘Know the tool you’re using’, right?”

Lys smiles, hearing herself quoted back to her. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“This is how you... I don’t know, clarify yourself? Solidify yourself. This is the touchstone.”

Okay, Lys hasn’t taught him about that yet. He’s learning disturbingly fast. “Yeah. Everyone’s got their own thing - you should probably figure out yours.”

“I think I have.”

“Yeah? What?”

Cas suddenly looks serious. “I’d rather not say.”

***************************************

After a while, Cas’ cell phone rings. Lys keeps talking to the woman in the armchair across from her, but she’s distracted by the soft conversation Cas is holding behind her.

“Hello, Dean.... Yes, we’re together... We’re fine, Dean. Lys had a task to fulfill in her position as crone. I came along to learn... I know. I would have told you, but it was early. I didn’t want to wake you up... How about I tell you when I get back? I don’t think it’ll be much longer... Alright. See you soon.”

The woman’s eyes are focused on the back wall, telling a story to no one in particular, and Lys feels bad, but she allows herself to glance at Cas as he resumes his seat. “Little clingy, isn’t he?” she hisses at him. One side of his mouth shifts upward, and he just shrugs, focusing his eyes back on the woman.

***************************************

Lys isn’t actively scared of Dean anymore, not really. If you look past the fact that the guy sleeps with a big-ass knife under his pillow while traveling and can apparently kidnap somebody on the spur of the moment with shit he keeps in his trunk, he’s really almost harmless. But he is a little crazy when it comes to his brother, and so right now, Lys needs to make damn sure she talks to Sam alone. Because when Dean finds out what she’s got planned, he’s going to want to kill her.

It’s not hard to get Sam alone. He’s the kind of guy who always stands in the back, where he can slip out without people noticing. Part of that’s probably all the leftover guilt from that last spell, but he wasn’t exactly Mr. Sunshine before that, either. It’d be interesting to see what he’s like without all that angst, but he hangs on to it like Lys does her magic. You’d probably have to pry it out of his cold dead hands.

When Lys knocks on his door, Sam opens right up. “I wanted to talk to you about the second counterspell. Alone.”

“Well, here I am.” He steps aside and lets her in, leaning against his wall with his arms crossed. Lys stands there awkwardly for a minute - then dives in.

“I’m pretty sure the point of the second trial was to establish a precedent. You wanted something Hell had - a soul, the thing they want most - and you took it. See, if it’s your will against Hell’s, and you win, that makes it easier to push your will through again on something bigger, like closing the gates. So now, we have to reverse that precedent. You have to lose to Hell. I found this book of spells in your library. A human can cast them, but I’m sure the origin is demonic. For our purposes, they’re good enough. I need to cast a spell on you, and you need to just... endure it, basically. It’s a book of torture.”

Sam just nods. No debate, no nothing, just a worrying resignation. “Physical or mental.”

“Pick your poison.”

“Physical,” he says immediately.

Lys has to laugh to cover her uneasiness. It’s like she’s more scared of this than he is. “Damn, you didn’t need any time to think, huh?”

Sam shrugs. “It’s easier. Trust me.” 

Some people are eager to let you know what they’ve gone through, like they’re proud of how much they can handle. Some don’t want to talk about it, guarding the hurt. Sam sounds like a plumber discussing the sink. This is just another chore to get through for him. Lys doesn’t even want to think about how much shit you’d have to go through to be this grimly calm about the prospect of torture. She’s sure as hell not, and she’s not going to be the one hurting.

“Okay, so how are we going to hide this from your brother?”

Sam shakes his head. “I know he’s overprotective, but if this is the only way, then he’s just going to have to deal with it.”

Lys scoffs. “Seriously? Is this Sam I’m talking to? Mr. No I’m Fine himself is gonna let somebody see him suffer?”

“Dean’ll turn it into something to beat himself up over either way... I guess I’m just sick of pretending.”

“Okay, well, I guess it’s up to you, but I don’t really want him there. It’s gonna be upsetting enough without any extra... emotion.”

Sam gets this smug smile and parrots her. “Wait, is this Lys? The Ice Queen is upset about hurting me?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” she snaps. Of course she’s upset about hurting somebody. Why does he think she avoids him all the time? If surgeons were too close to their patients, they wouldn’t be able to cut them open.

He drops his folded arms, pushes off the wall and comes close, clapping a hand down on her shoulder. Don’t stiffen, Lys tells her muscles too late. Damn, he’s a lot bigger when he’s not lying down wasting away.

“Seriously, don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse.” 

That’s more fucked up than Lys can put words to, so she doesn’t. Sam moves past her to the door.

***********************************

You have to hand it to whoever - whatever - wrote this spell. It’s pretty brilliant. Sustained pain you can get used to, or if it’s bad enough, it just can’t be processed, which is the point at which a normal person will black out. But pain in a little burst, no matter how bad it is, that’s hard. Somehow having the time to breathe out and feel better just makes the contrast of the next jolt even worse. 

This spell works with what you’ve already got, too - all it does is tell your body’s muscles to tense really fucking hard, hold it for a while, then release. It’s just the worst cramp you’ve ever had, all over your whole body, over and over. It won’t do any permanent damage, but it’ll make you very sorry you pissed a witch off. It’s automated, too. It starts with a touch, and works on its own after that, slowly fading away around twelve hours later. Assembly-line torture, you don’t even have to stick around to watch. You could walk down the street with your hand out just setting this thing off.

Just like Lys expected, Dean insists on being there for the spell. Almost as predictably, that means Cas is coming too, and after hearing the discussion Charlie and Kevin tagged along - all of them with these worried looks on their faces, like they can do any good by being here. Kate’s here too, but that’s different. 

Lys clears her throat awkwardly. “Iron and wormwood, canker and gall, knot this man’s muscles, cause him to fall.” Ugh, even the poetics are awful. Only a demon would actually make it rhyme. Then she leans forward and brushes her hand over his forehead. For a minute Sam just blinks back at her - then he thrashes back, frozen hard with pain.

This is a nasty spell, and Lys isn’t entirely sure how it’s going to work. She’s already steeled herself to sticking around through it all, just in case something goes wrong. Everyone else is unnecessary, but it’s like no one can quite make themselves leave the room. They end up backing away, turning themselves so they don’t have to look directly at Sam. 

Well, except for Dean. He makes it exactly three jolts before he’s down on the floor with Sam. He pulls his brother up in front of him, so his head is back against Dean’s chest, muttering more of his encouraging nonsense. “Okay, Sammy, okay. You got this...” Sam doesn’t try to push him away at all. He’s not exactly asking for comfort, but he’s not refusing it either. Huh. He actually likes this, or at least appreciates it. What was all that stoic stuff about in the first place, then?

When the next jolt comes around, there’s a sudden groan from Dean. He’s folded almost over his brother, clearly in pain, and everyone takes a concerned step forward at once until Lys shouts, “Nobody touch him!”

Shit, how could she have been so stupid, obviously it’s contagious. Now it’s got both of them. Except Sam is wriggling out of his brother’s grip, holding him up in turn now, and asking, “Dean? What’s going on?”

“Sam, are you hurting?” she demands.

“No, I’m not.”

A few jolts later, she thinks she knows what’s going on. It is contagious, but strangely, the pain has started alternating between them. Sam writhes, then it’s Dean’s turn.

Cas gives Lys a concerned look. “Will the spell still work?”

“As long as Sam doesn’t break it - which he can’t, I don’t even know how - then it should still work. Dean just gets to go along for the ride, I guess...”

Cas nods, then quickly drops to his knees and puts his hand on Dean’s. He jerks it back, but it’s too late.

“No! Dammit, Cas, what the hell? Now it’s got you too!”

That fact doesn’t seem to bother him. “But now it’s split three ways.”

Dean stares at him for a long minute, and then the next jolt of pain takes Cas. Obviously he wasn’t prepared for how much pain a human can experience. It leaves him curled tight into a ball, leaning against Dean’s shoulder while he hangs on to him and makes a confused attempt to talk him through it, too.

“Cas, you dumb... okay, hang on buddy, it’ll fade. You only get one turn out of three, okay? We can do that.”

A few more jolts go by. The room is silent except for the grunt when one of the three is hit with the spell again. No one is really meeting anyone else’s eyes. 

Then Charlie heaves a huge sigh. “Oh, man. Ooookay. So one out of four is better than three, right?”

“No, wait-” Sam protests, but Cas, still recovering from his last jolt, is slow to react. Charlie taps his head.

Seconds later, Kate taps her in turn. “Tag.” Everyone else looks at her in surprise, and Lys wonders if the others can see her nerves under that big fuck-you grin. Probably not.

Kevin looks grimly at the cluster of people in the middle of the room. “This is gonna suck, isn’t it.”

“Hey, you don’t have to do anything for me,” Sam protests.

Kevin shrugs. “I don’t hate you, though. Any of you. What the hell.”

Charlie holds out her hand, and Kevin slaps it. Everyone carefully doesn’t look at Lys. They probably expect her to join in. But see, now she’s got six people to keep alive if a demon-inspired spell turns out to have a nasty twist.

“You should all stay together. I’m gonna hang around and monitor the spell, in case something goes wrong.”

Everyone nods and says yeah, that’s smart. But with the exception of Kate, their voices are all a little cool.

For the next twelve hours, Lys watches them take their turns, gritting their teeth and leaning against each other in a loose circle. There’s enough space between the pain to allow them all to recover easily. They even eat some sandwiches Lys brings them. After a while they get tired and fed up, but someone’s always there with a joke or a stupid comment to loosen them all up when one of them gets a little close to snapping. It sucks, sure, but they’re all gonna get through it okay.

And meanwhile, Lys is careful not to get within arms’ reach, hoping for the best and waiting for the worst. She watches them struggle under a spell she cast, avoids their eyes and the heavy feeling in her gut, and paces the edge, where she belongs.


	10. Charlie 2

Charlie likes herself. She’s smart, she can do some cool things with computers, she’s funny, she’s a good person and a good friend, or at least she tries really hard to be. So yeah, she’s content to be herself.

In high school it wasn’t exactly awesome to be a nerd, a geek, and a lesbian, all rolled into one big ball of awkward. But even then, some part of Charlie was always certain that there was a place for her in this world, and she just had to hang on and find it. It wasn’t always a walk in the park, but she did, and there was, and it turns out in her world, with her people, Charlie’s pretty cool after all. So, happy ending! 

Some days, though, it just kinda feels like the whole world is high school. Right now is one of those times.

It’s ironic, really, cause the bunker’s just full of love these days. Nobody’s talking about that nasty spell, but Charlie thinks it does have something to do with the fact that they dealt with that together. Sam and Dean aren’t really talking to each other more, but when they’re around each other the quiet’s a little less “avoiding a conversation” and more “known you so long I can read your mind”. Kevin’s spending more and more time around other people, too, and Cas and Dean are basically attached at the hip. And whenever Kate’s around, the guys all treat her as just one of them, now, no different than Charlie or anybody else. Things still get quiet when Lys comes in the room, but with Kate, it’s like, okay, she’s a witch, but she’s our witch. And that’s the problem.

Basically, Kate is just like that hot girl in high school who never turned her back to change for gym, because “we’re all girls here! It’s not like you guys care about my boobs!” Except, uh, yeah, Charlie did very much care about them, but she couldn’t exactly say that without sounding like she was totally perving out on it. And then she would have been stuck in a whole room full of girls who were at the very least uncomfortable around her. So Charlie stuck to herself, stared firmly at the wall, and never mentioned that she’d have been thrilled if hot girl took her top off - and meant it.

Obviously Kate isn’t actually interested in Lys. Or any girls, probably. What was that the two of them said? “Gross”. “Wrong”. Ouch. But though Kate keeps her distance from the guys, she has no personal space with Lys and Charlie. “We’re all girls here”, huh? With Lys it’s pretty subtle, probably cause it’s like cuddling with a shark, but Kate does tend to lean her shoulder into Lys while they’re working together. And then, with Charlie - it’s confusing. She sits next to her and lets her arms and legs fall against Charlie’s. She leans on her when she gets tired, or when she’s looking at Charlie’s computer over her shoulder. She brushes past her close enough that they touch, and she usually lays a hand on her arm while they talk, too. Charlie feels like a creep for enjoying all this innocent touching, but then when she pulls away, Kate’s face looks uncertain, like she’s worried Charlie is annoyed at her or something, and then she feels like a jerk. Blarg.

************************************

Cas is getting jumpy. Word on the street is he’s not too popular with some of his old buddies. He’s just laying low, keeping tabs on the angels, but even Charlie can tell that Cas is not gonna be happy hiding underground forever. Dean’s doing his best UFO impression. (Hovering. Charlie cracks herself up.) So there’s a whole lot of intense staring going on. Charlie would think it was adorable if it weren’t actually life and death.

Everybody did their part to angel-proof the bunker. Cas supervised drawing a bunch of wiggly signs all over the place, Lys and Kate laid down all these spells around the perimeter, and Charlie keeps finding weird blades and guns and stuff hidden under couch cushions and on top of shelves and all kinds of handy places. She’s not sure who the culprit is, but she kinda suspects Dean. Charlie herself, meanwhile, hooked up some hidden security cameras to a live feed. They run to tab she keeps open on her laptop. She even rigged a motion sensor to the front of the door, so now it sends her a text whenever it picks something up. So far, lots of squirrel false alarms.

************************************

It’s dinnertime when Lys sticks her head into the kitchen.

“Kate, I need you.”

Dean frowns and calls back, “She’s eating. You should try it.”

Kate just forces a swallow, though, and says, “Okay.”

Lys narrows her eyes like she’s thinking, and says, “No, stay. Finish eating.” She turns to go, then turns back again to add, “But quickly.”

When she’s gone, everything is quiet except for the sound of Kate shoveling in her food. Dean shakes his head. “I mean, hey, I know she’s one of the good guys. But she doesn’t exactly make it easy to like her.”

Kate scowls and swallows hard again. “In the seven years I’ve been with her, she’s never turned down someone who asked for her help. So maybe she just doesn’t have the time to be Miss Fucking Congeniality.”

That makes Dean laugh. “You know when you get pissed you sound just like her?”

Maybe it’s all their leftover goodwill from the spell, but Kate just lets it go, and just shrugs, “She rubs off on me.”

Dean smirks. Oh, boy. Charlie can tell where his mind’s headed. “See, you got all mad when I assumed you were together, but then you come out with sentences like that.”

“No! Man, what is your problem, that’s so messed up.” That does not hurt Charlie at all. Nope.

“What’s so messed up about it, then?” he immediately demands, definitely not looking over at Charlie. Major handmaiden points.

“I’m her apprentice!”

Charlie’s surprised. “You are?”

“Yeah... remember? You were there when she took on the new guy...?”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t know you were one too. I mean you never said so.”

“I just assumed...” Kate gives her a funny look, then turns back to Dean. “I’m basically her servant, and in return she teaches me everything she knows. It’s like she’s my boss and my teacher at the same time. I do things the way she does because she taught me how. Other witches will always be able to see her in the way I work. And I’ve spent seven years living with her... She’s like a sister to me, and I know I’m basically the only family she’s got.” Suddenly Kate realizes everybody is listening to her, and she gets shy. Her speech suddenly trails off into a mumbled, “So... that would be gross. Not to mention professionally unethical.”

“Huh. Okay.” Dean backs off. Charlie feels better about it, too. It doesn’t change Kate’s awkward cuddliness, but at least Charlie doesn’t have to think she’d be totally grossed out if she knew. That’s good.

**************************************

Kate and Charlie are just killing time, watching stupid cute videos on youtube. Charlie’s trying not to pay attention to the warmth of Kate’s side pressed against her. Then her phone buzzes, and she glances down to see it’s her motion sensors.

“Another squirrel...” she sighs to Kate, and clicks over to the right tab.

Oh shit. There’s two buttoned-up, starchy suit-wearing, definitely not fun-looking blond women in front of the door.

“Angels,” she gasps, and Kate shakes her head, fingers digging tightly enough into Charlie’s arm to hurt.

“Witches. Fuck, fuck, fuck...” She scrambles up, not exactly running but definitely speed-walking away. Charlie follows her.

“What witches?”

“Investigators. Lys has been pushing it for a while... Shit, we’re in trouble. Lys! Lys! Where are you!”

Sam hears her shouting and starts following too, asking, “What? What is it?” Kate doesn’t bother to talk to him, and Charlie just shrugs. She doesn’t have a clue.

They pick up Kevin along the way, then Dean and Cas. Finally, Lys steps out of her room into the hall, looking a little sleepy, but also already resigned.

“They found us?”

“Yeah. What do we do.”

“Nothing. You stay out of this.”

“No, no way, you need someone to watch your back.”

“Fucking hell, Kate, I can’t fight them.”

Dean pushes his way right into the argument. “Well, hey, wouldn’t be the first witches I’ve fought.” Guess he knows what’s going on, then.

Next to him, Cas opens his hand. That bright bluish-white light is balanced in it again. “I can give you my power if necessary.”

Sam nods, obviously making a decision. “I have no idea what’s going on, but after what you’ve done for me - if you could use my help, you’ve got it.”

In a movie, this would be the time for the inspiring music and the speech. Instead, Lys looks seriously pissed, the scary kind where they just get really quiet instead of yelling.

“Are you fucking kidding me.”

“We can-” Kate starts, but Lys cuts her off.

“You know the deal. If I’ve been turned, I die. If I haven’t, I don’t. So if I’m innocent, why would I run? But you think I need to fight my way out of this. So you all think... that I’m evil. This is what you’re saying to me.”

“No, I just-” Kate starts to explain, but Lys talks right over her again.

“Actually, your time with me’s up, so I don’t really give a damn what you think. I’m going to answer the door now. If anyone follows me, I will make you very, very sorry you did.”

No one follows her. For a minute, they stand around in the hall, not looking at each other, and then they all just kind of drift away.

*************************************

A couple of hours later, Charlie is sitting around, trying not to worry and googling random things - “prison break”, “wicked witch” - when she gets another text from the door. It’s Lys and the creepy clones again!

Lys, of course, doesn’t have to wait at the door, and by the time Charlie’s rounded everyone else up, the three witches have made their way into the library. Lys looks up from handing them a stack of books, but her face stays flat, serious and angry, like she doesn’t even recognize them. Charlie was about to say something - maybe just, “yay, you’re not dead!” - but the words die in her throat.

Instead, one of the blondes steps forward and holds out her hand. “I’m Cara. This is Rachel. Nice to meet you.”

Nobody shakes her hand. Kate’s voice is a little thick, like she’s been crying. “What’s the verdict?”

“There isn’t one, not yet. This case is obviously a little more... complicated than the average. We’re referring it to the general assembly.”

Kate nods slowly, and turns to look at the others. “The witches that were at the solstice ceremony. All the big names. They’ll vote on it.”

“But only after Alyssa has a chance to present her case,” the other blonde puts in. “Her books and journals are evidence, obviously. Your testimony would also be helpful.”

Sam asks, “Do you have to be a witch to testify?”

“No. Any of you are welcome. I should warn you, though, that you’ll need to drink a potion which will compel you to speak only the truth. Some people find this very upsetting.”

Dean scoffs. “Been there, done that. We’ll be there.”

*********************************

The creepy clones take a flight back to Connecticut that evening. Lys is on it with them. They have no idea whether that’s by choice or not. She didn’t say a word to them while she was there. Dean is driving again, obviously, and Sam and Cas are riding along with him. Charlie loves those boys, but the idea of spending like a week living out of a car with them seems... smelly. She booked herself, Kevin, and Kate a flight.

Five minutes after takeoff, Charlie glances across the aisle at Kevin, and has to fight down a giggle. He’s already asleep, his head tilted back and his mouth hanging wide open. Wow. She turns to the seat next to her, and pokes Kate. “Look.”  
 Kate just nods, totally uninterested. Okay, yeah, not a good time. Maybe Charlie should have known better, but she just wanted to make her smile. If anybody needs sleep, it’s probably Kate. She looks completely worn out, and she keeps rubbing at her bloodshot eyes. It’s understandable. Dean told Charlie the little bit he knows about the situation before they left, so she gets it. She’d probably be a wreck if she basically had a family member on death row.

“So. Um, tell me what you need me to say for Lys.”

Kate looks warily at her, keeping her voice down low so the other passengers can’t hear. “No offense, but we’re going to want to give them a good impression... and I know you really don’t like her.”

“It’s not that I don’t like her, it’s more like I’m terrified of her.”

“That’s because you just can’t see behind the act. If you actually looked at what she did and not just what she said, you’d love her. Words don’t matter, only actions do,” Kate says firmly.

Charlie laughs awkwardly, cause no, that’s obviously not true. “But the way you act is confusing,” she blurts. Oh, no, no no no, worst timing ever, Bradbury.

Kate frowns. “Why?”

“Um - like the apprentice thing. How was I supposed to know you were her apprentice if you didn’t tell me?”

“I was following her around, working with her, living with her, what else could I be?”

Charlie’s ears are probably red under her hair. “You know that already. Me and Dean really did think you were dating.”

Kate shakes her head, a big fat no again, but then she stops and looks very carefully at Charlie.

“There’s going to be a lot to do when we land. If I know Lys, she’s not going to do a damn thing in her own defense, so it’s on me - whether she wants to talk to me about it or not. I want to call some of her old students, some of the people she’s helped, and so on. Obviously I want you guys to help too, if you can, but I probably won’t have much time to talk to you, or the emotional resources... I just have to go into, like, work mode, you know. All business.”

Charlie’s nodding along. Of course, she totally gets it. Why does Kate think she has to explain this?

“But - you have a point. Maybe Lys has rubbed off a little too much. I haven’t exactly been clear with you. Not in words, anyway. I was trying to show you... Okay, if this freaks you out, just forget it, I’ll be busy anyway... But Lys isn’t into girls. I am. Into girls. Into you, actually.”

For a long minute, Charlie’s quiet. All of the responses she can come up with - victory dance? makeout session? - don’t seem appropriate at the moment. In the end, she settles for calm and collected, but even then, she can’t keep the smile off her face. “Awesome, cause I’m totally into you.”

Kate lets out this huge breath Charlie didn’t realize she was holding, but now she looks close to tears again. It’s just emotion overload, she guesses, and as cute as Kate looks when she’s teary, mostly Charlie just wants to fix it. So she throws an arm around her (cause she can do that now!) and pulls her into a hug.

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay. I promise. We’re gonna make it okay.” And she doesn’t know how, but that’s a promise she’s gonna keep. Now she’s allowed to care, Charlie’s kinda surprised by how much she does.

After a while, Kate’s death grip on Charlie loosens, and she just leans against her. Then she sinks down and sideways, glancing up at Charlie before she puts her head in her lap. Charlie just nods, of course she doesn’t mind, and says, “You should try and sleep.”

Kate looks skeptical, but the minute Charlie tries running her fingers through Kate’s hair, she sighs, settles down, and goes right to sleep. Huh. Charlie files that away under “useful for the future”.

There’s a week until the witch trial, and Charlie knows it’s gonna be a crazy one. Kate really isn’t gonna have a lot of time to spare, which sucks. But Lys is innocent - Kate wouldn’t stay with anyone evil, Charlie’s sure of it - and all they have to do is prove it. There’s got to be a way to do that. Where would Lys meet a demon, anyway? Outside of the bunker, there’s only the college or the street, and Charlie just bets those places have security footage, and maybe it’s stored on computers. If Charlie can show she never met a demon anywhere, that gets Lys off, doesn’t it? They say Big Brother is always watching, and Charlie can definitely peek over his shoulder... Yeah, when she gets off the plane, a nice long hacking session might be in order. Charlie looks down at her lap. Damn, Kate’s also cute when she’s sleeping. And right now there’s also the whole damsel in distress thing, which yeah, Charlie can admit she has a weakness for. Fortunately, she’s good at saving the day. Okay, so that’s the plan, then. Use brilliant hacking skills to save the day, then get Kate naked. Sounds good.

The next time the flight attendant comes around, he glances down at them with a funny look. Charlie just gives him a big grin back, cause she’s Charlie Bradbury, and she’s awesome, and so is the hot girl on her lap. And after a minute, the guy smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Insert standard apology about not posting in a reasonable time frame here. No, seriously though. A wide variety of wonderful and very work-intensive things are happening in my life right now, and I will definitely finish this, but the updating will probably continue to be a bit erratic. But I'm only a few chapters away from the end at this point.


	11. Cas 2

In his old life, as he’s come to think of it, Cas never traveled. Yes, he moved from place to place, but it took only as long as blinking. There was no time between the start and the end of the journey. Riding in this car, he thinks, is actually a good metaphor for most of the human experience. Neither here nor there, but moving through a temporary middle space, feeling alternately very free and - as he struggles to stretch his legs - absolutely trapped.

The Winchesters are pretty good road companions, but Cas is still grateful when he sees the witches’ house again. A boy they’ve never met before opens the door to them. “Who are you?” he demands, looking warily at them.

“My name is Cas. These are Sam and Dean Winchester.”

At that the boy gives a nod of recognition and holds his hand out to them. “Oh, okay. Kate’s been expecting you. I’m Rob Harrison. I was - I mean, I’m going to be Lys’ new apprentice.”

Cas notes the slip, but decides to practice tact. It’s actually one of the skills he’s most proud of having acquired. Of course, no one else can ever notice when he’s doing it, or he’s not doing it very well. Even the Winchesters seem to think Cas is just very unaware of his surroundings. He’s not. He may not always understand the subtleties of what he sees, but he sees it.

Kate catches them up on the situation so far. She warns Cas that they’ll know, from the journals, that he is a fallen angel, and tells him to keep his answers about his past to a bare minimum.

“I thought I would have to drink a... truth potion?”

She rolls her eyes. “They were exaggerating. You can’t actually force anyone to tell the truth reliably. It’s the old torture problem.”

“Whoa, what?” Kevin demands, suddenly nervous.

“Relax, it was an analogy. I just meant that you can’t break someone halfway. Either they’re tough enough to resist you, and you lose - or they’re not, and then you get your way, all the way. If you have to break someone to get them to talk, then you’re always gonna hear what you came in wanting to hear.”

“So what are they going to do?” Kevin presses.

Kate looks around at the little group skeptically. “Anybody here have any experience with ecstasy?”

The feeling? Cas tries to remember. Some of the things he’s seen were very beautiful, it’s true, but he didn’t feel-

Seeing his face, Kate adds, “It’s a drug. Anyway, that’s the basic chemical we use. Only for really serious occasions, because it isn’t found in plants, you have to make it in a lab, and apparently it’s really hard to suppress all the little chemical bits that make you want to take your clothes off and rub up on people. So you’ll probably still feel that some, but not quite the same. Basically, everybody is your friend, so when one of your friends asks you something, well, of course you just want to tell him everything you think about it.”

Sam frowns. “But to take that as evidence in a court...”

“It’s not like we don’t have a paper trail to back us up. But it’s all up to interpretation. That’s why I’ve been calling in other people. There’s no way they could all be corrupted, and if they all say Lys, and her administration and her friends, are good guys, then that helps.”

“They’re character witnesses,” Sam says with a look of dawning comprehension.

“I guess. I hope it works.”

“So where’s Lys’ lawyer?”

“We don’t have those.” Cas can hear Sam inhale in subtle surprise. “Technically Lys is supposed to defend herself, but her being who she is... I’m organizing it. Or trying to.”

“Let me help you,” Sam offers.

Kate looks surprised. “Okay. Thanks.”

******************************************

Last time they were here, everyone had their own rooms, but now the large house is apparently filled to capacity, and Kevin, Cas and the Winchesters will all have to share a room. Sam doesn’t care; he doesn’t even want to go upstairs to drop his bag. He and Kate are already deep in conversation, a handwritten list of bullet points in front of them. Kevin just glances up from Charlie’s computer and says, “The left bed is mine,” glaring warily as if he expects them to challenge him for it.

For a minute, Dean lingers. “So, wait, where are you sleeping, Charlie?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, but she’s smiling far too widely for such a casual statement. Cas decides, once again, not to comment on it.

Upstairs, Dean closes the door and spins to face him with a grin, a wonderful and rare one. There’s disbelief in it, of course, because Dean generally expects the worst, and a little bit of wariness, because good things are weak spots, things that can be lost or taken away. But there’s also real happiness for his friend, far more pure and uncomplicated than it could ever be for himself, and for Cas, that attitude is one of the saddest and also the best things about Dean. Without his consent, one corner of Cas‘ own mouth lifts high. He’s happy too. But now Dean’s talking, so Cas should listen.

“...can’t believe it! Damn, Charlie is good!”

“What?”

Dean’s smile shifts, turning warmer and more personal as he drops a hand back onto its familiar place on Cas’ shoulder. Focus, he reminds himself, on Dean’s words.

“They’re... well, I dunno exactly what they are to each other, but Kate and Charlie are sharing a bed.”

Cas nods. “Yes.”

Dean searches his face, then assumes more explanation is needed. “I mean they’re doing the nasty, Cas. They’re... you know...” Dean raises his hands as if he’s going to explain with signs, and Cas decides to cut him off.

“I understand. It’s nice, but why are you so surprised? Kate has been making her interest plain for weeks.”

“What? Seriously? Cas! Why didn’t you say something!”

“I was practicing tact.”

******************************************

Television has led Cas to expect a room with a high podium for a judge, and maybe a row of seats along the side for a jury. Instead, the witches have rented out a hotel conference room. As they file in, Dean mutters to Cas, “What the fuck? Are they just making it up as they go?”

Ahead of them, Lys’ subordinate, Allan, overhears and turns to answer. “No, but if you build a courtroom you know you’re going to use it often. Call us optimists.”

Though they’re not technically approved by Lys, Kate directs her witnesses to sit in the front row, behind the defendant. Lys narrows her eyes, focusing in on Kate. She looks angry. Kate just shrugs. After a minute, Lys shrugs back, then turns to face forward. Behind her, Kate holds a thumbs up at the others. Apparently Lys approves.

******************************************

First, the investigators present their suspicions. They start with their old doubts: Lys’ background, her family. Then they circle around to the Winchesters. 

“You all know any contact with Hell is prohibited,” one of them says, pointing at Sam. “This man has been corrupted - not once, not twice, but more times than we can count. Hell’s in his veins, and it’s in his mind. He’s shot through with it. He’s powerful in many ways, but evil knows him, and it can always find him, always use him. He’s unsalvageable - but he’s not one of ours, and so our justice doesn’t apply. But now our own representative of justice, of wisdom, and of duty, is suddenly close to him, so close that she’d pervert one of our most powerful spells to help him. Of all people, she should know better. Instead, she brought that poison in. And now we have to ask ourselves: why?”

Next to Cas, Dean shifts back and forth, clenching his jaw. On Dean’s other side, Sam’s head is bowed low. He looks fascinated by his hands. Dean inhales as if to say something, and Cas lays his hand on his arm, gripping tight in a warning to stay quiet.

“Now, you might be thinking, there’s another brother here. He’s the one that went to ask for Alyssa’s help, the kind of help it’s her job to give. Surely he’d notice if Alyssa, or his brother, or both, started going bad. Surely he’d put a stop to it. Well - that’s what you’d expect, but everything we know about them suggests differently. Sam has a hold on Dean; Dean does not have a hold on Sam. Dean doesn’t plan, doesn’t lead - he just reacts to threats when he sees them, if he sees them. This man has never had control of a situation in his life. He is completely incapable of dealing with something like this.”

Dean has grown still. His own head is now turned down to his hands. Cas squeezes the arm in his grip, and Dean pulls it away.

“Reading through Alyssa’s journals, we could trace how her attitude changed the longer she was away from us. Something was certainly weighing on her.” 

Behind them, a projection of Lys’ journal appears on the screen. The inspectors flip through quickly, and as Cas watches her work becomes messier, random tidbits with arrows snaking around connecting them, word after word scratched out, entire pages crossed out with a giant X. The notes in the margins get shorter, more cryptic: “Salvage this?”, and later, “NO.” When she finally wrote down the torture spell, she noted her dark source book at the top of the page, alongside the words, “The road to Hell...”

“Is paved with good intentions,” one of the cold blondes in front finishes. “This would suggest she didn’t turn until recently. But could the Winchesters really flip her so quickly? Even with her predispositions? Well, they’ve done it before. One of their associates is an angel - or he was when they met him. Since then, he’s dealt with demons as well. Now, he’s fallen, and human. Alyssa was teaching him to use magic, and he is apparently worryingly good at it.”

The page on the screen is filled with the story they just summarized, the one Cas told her. He realizes with surprise that he is “C: raw fucking power. Steer him or get the hell out of the way.”

“Now, this is slightly outside the scope of this investigation, but we’d like to point out that Alyssa’s journals confirm the community’s guess that the, as she puts it, “extra freaky shit” we’ve observed lately is due to angels. They’ve been cast out of Heaven, apparently. We’ll have to decide what our stance is on that later. This one, this Castiel, doesn’t appear to have had any contact with them, so we can treat it as a separate issue. But the question remains: why is Alyssa giving powerful knowledge to a being she clearly sees as possibly dangerous? What direction does she hope to ‘steer’ him in? And if he is a weapon she is trying to use, then how do we deal with him?”

Dean’s head snaps up. Cas sits a little straighter himself. No one seems interested in “dealing” with him at the moment, but he suspects he wouldn’t be free to leave. Suddenly winning Lys’ case has become very personal.

“Alyssa Young, do you have anything to say in your defense?”

Lys stands, and glances quickly around the room. Then she shrugs again. “No crime committed, no defense needed.” She sits back down. The room fills with mutters. 

From one row back, Kate stands up. “But as her apprentice, her work is my work. If you find her guilty, you’re going to come after me next. So her defense is my defense, and I should be allowed to undertake it.”

Everyone expected this, apparently. The inspectors nod. “Point taken. It’s all yours.”

******************************************

Kate presents her factual evidence very well. From the way Sam’s nodding his head next to her, Cas suspects she was coached. 

The main event, though, is obviously the witnesses who’ve assembled to speak. Small paper cups of some dark potion are brought in on trays, and Dean scoffs and leans over to mutter to Cas, “Geez, talk about drinking the Koolaid.”

It’s not a colored sugar-water mixture, of course, but Cas is surprised to discover that it is pleasantly sweet. He worries about how this potion will affect his newfound ability to do magic, should it be needed... And then he stops.

There’s no need to worry. These people want to fix the world, and so does he. All he has to do is tell them the truth, and they’ll understand.

“Yes, Lys taught me some magic... I’ve picked up more than you think. More than Lys knows either, I think. Don’t be worried, though. I’m not a threat to anyone.” The next question makes Cas laugh a little. He leans towards the grave faces in front of him and smiles warmly at them. Silly people. “Right now, I have no goals. I’ll have to deal with the mess I made sometime. But this is good, what I’ve got right here with these people,” he makes a circle with his hand, encompassing his friends, imagining a protective halo of light around them, “and I just want to keep it like this. I’ve hurt those two so much,” another hand wave, “and they shouldn’t keep taking me back, but they do. And so maybe I should be more grateful, and just appreciate it, just keep hanging around Dean... And Sam too, yeah. I just feel better around Dean. Always did. More so, now that I’m whatever I am. Am I really human? I don’t know. Some days I hope not. Some days I hope so... Well, I don’t know, originally he was just so interesting. These days it’s because he feels - safe. He teaches me things, he watches out for me. And he’s a good cook. And he’s warm. Warm hands, warm arms. Yeah, Dean is my favorite out of everybody...” Apparently they don’t want to hear this. They cut him off. Cas forgives them, and answers their questions. “No, Lys would never deal with demons. She was always warning me away from that. That’s where she was trying to steer me, you see?... The angels? I don’t know. Some of them are probably just scared and confused, but some of them are dangerous...” They’ve heard enough. He’s thanked back to his seat.

The feeling of the potion stays with him, though. It spreads out from him, warm and light, and he hopes it’s hitting the people he loves with its good rays. Especially Dean, sitting next to him. He leans his shoulder against Dean’s, and basks in that shared warmth. Then he shifts closer, until he’s pressed against Dean’s side. He’s shaking with laughter, and Cas grins back at him. Look at Dean’s beautiful laugh.

The rest of the testimony is something of a blur. Cas tries to focus, beaming at the faces of these people he cares about, but he’s constantly distracted. His side is so warm.

When Kate drinks her dose, it’s as if a weight falls off her shoulders. She tells the assembly almost exactly the same words she used to defend Lys to her friends, back in the bunker before the arrest. “She’s my sister,” she says, and for a short, painful moment Cas thinks of all the siblings he’s murdered, and then he thinks of all those he still has, feeling a love for them swell - and then the heat next to him calls him back to the moment. Dean said he was like a brother once, too.

Charlie giggles a lot. “Look, I’m not gonna lie, Lys is scary. She’s intense. But I trust Kate about her... Kate says Lys made her what she is. Well, I figure part of it is just natural, but Kate is so awesome. She’s sweet, and brave, and honest, and sooo smart, and she listens to all my nerd rants and she’s sexy. Really sexy... Well, the point is that if Lys had even a little to do with shaping her than Lys must be good, too. She’s like Snape... You know, scary, mean, but not a bad guy in the end.”

Sam just stands there for a while, looking blankly out at them. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel anything.” An investigator frowns in irritation and steps up to check his reactions. 

In the meantime, the room fills with soft murmurs, and then with soft laughter. For a minute Cas thinks they’re laughing at him, still squirming into Dean’s side. He turns his head to smile at them - let them laugh, this feels good - but then sees who they’re really looking at. 

Charlie and Kate are kissing in a way Cas is pretty sure you’re not supposed to let other people watch. He sees a flash of someone’s tongue. Then Allan pushes Kate over into his seat, putting himself firmly between them. He crosses his arms and stares forward like he doesn’t notice anything strange - even when they reach out and hold hands over his stomach. The room laughs out loud, and Cas goes right along with them, feeling his chest and stomach shake with it, feeling Dean shake along with him. He twists to get a better look at Dean, slipping his elbow over the back of his chair so he can put a hand on Dean’s shoulder for a change, and they laugh until the inspector calls for attention. Then he turns to the front again, letting his arm straighten a little so his hand is resting at the base of Dean’s neck, another of his friend’s favorite tricks. Dean doesn’t comment, so Cas leaves it there.

“He’s so big, I gave him another dose,” the inspector announces. 

Sam’s pulled up a chair, sitting with his elbows resting on his knees as he smiles out at the rest of them. “Everyone knows everything about all the different ways I’ve screwed up. No secrets for me. The patient can’t have secrets from the doctor, right? And I’m always the patient. I told Lys everything... Of course I regret it. Thing is, it’s not like I was trying to ruin everything. I wanted to do right. Just can’t seem to get the hang of it, somehow... I want to get better.... Lys wrote that down? Yeah, I wasn’t sure about it before, but I made my decision. She wasn’t nice about it, you know. She basically told me to quit whining. She’s kind of a bitch... No, no, that came out all wrong. I like that she’s a bitch! See, take Dean for instance. My brother. My whole life, whatever I need, that’s what he tries to be. From, like, making me food to making deals with demons, and I know how you feel about that, but he did that all for me, that’s on me. The one thing he can’t give me is he can’t leave me alone. I don’t mean for good. But he’s like a crutch, and every time I lean on him it’s like I can feel myself getting weaker, and then next time I screw up again. And maybe I screw up because I know I’ve got that to fall back on. Maybe I just need to know that if I fall back, nobody’s gonna catch me... What I meant was, Lys let me make my decision. I needed that... And you know what else I think about Dean? He loves me, sure, but I think he must hate me, too. Somewhere really deep down. Because he spends so much time looking after me. What’s he got for himself? Nothing. If I can get through without any more blood and fire, that’s good enough for me. But he could walk away and do something else, and he won’t. And somewhere, really deep down, I think he blames me for it. He must. I do... This stuff is amazing, though. Normally I can barely think about how I feel. But now it’s like, it just feels okay. The world is a good place and some things got screwed up, but most people are good. And I do love those guys over there. Dean most, but the others too...”

The room is filled with more laughter as the two inspectors tow Sam, still talking, back to his place in the audience. Then Dean’s name is called, and Cas makes a disappointed sound as he moves away.

When it hits him, Dean spreads open his arms and smiles Cas’ favorite smile. “I’m good. I’m good... No, I know what Sam said, but it’s total bullshit. Of course I don’t hate him.” Dean points to their row. “I love every one of those people over there. That’s my family. That’s what I’ve got for myself... Why doesn’t that count? You don’t get it, man, this ain’t normal for me. More like the opposite. There’s a whole list of people I’ve gotten killed in the back of my head, and I remember ‘em all, every day. Even now, Lys is in this situation cause I came to her. Don’t think that hasn’t kept me up at night. But your happy juice here is reminding me I’ve got a table at home now and when everyone sits down we fill up all the chairs. Now my friend Charlie’s even found herself a nice girl, too -” he shoots them a goofy grin and a thumbs up, and the room giggles again - “so I’m good... Lys isn’t evil. I’m 100% sure, and you know why? Cause evil people don’t worry about being evil... No. She’s never dealt with demons. No way. But you know what,” he turns toward Lys, the first time that any of the witnesses have, “that doesn’t really matter to me. God knows why, but you’ve put a lot on the line for us, and it’s not like any of us have clean hands, either. You’ve earned some loyalty. Like it or not, I’ve got your back.”

The inspectors are scowling when they dismiss Dean. Finally! He’s coming back to sit next to Cas again. He wriggles closer, and this time, Dean laughs softly and throws an arm over Cas’ shoulders to pull him closer. 

“You really like this, huh Cas?”

“It feels good.”

“Yeah. And you know what the best thing is? You can’t fly away from me anymore.” He flaps the hand at Cas’ shoulder like a wing, laughs, and then suddenly stops. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be happy about that.”

Dean’s fingers are still absentmindedly moving at his shoulder. Cas forgets what he wanted to say. Oh yeah. “I don’t want to leave.”

“Yeah? That’s good.”

“Mm-hm.”

Dean’s fingers keep moving, up and down and around in absentminded little figure eights at the top of his shoulder. Cas’ head droops toward Dean, Dean shifts further into him. Dean’s stubble scratches gently at Cas’ temple. It’s like cheese fries, or naps - strange, implausible, amazingly good.

Then two of the witches are plucking Dean’s hand off his shoulder and hauling them to their feet. Everyone’s getting up now, and for a minute Cas wonders if he’s arrested. Except lots of people are smiling, and some are shaking Lys‘ hand.

“We won?”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Where are you taking us?” Dean asks. Not even all that magic can kill his natural suspicion. Cas finds it endearing.

“Relax, we’re just gonna take you upstairs to sober up. Everybody’s got their own hotel room. There are gonna be guards in the hall, but they’re only there to keep you from going into each other’s rooms. It’ll be over by morning.”

Dean scoffs. “What, are you afraid of an orgy starting or something?”

One of their guards smirks. “Last time the hotel made us pay the cleaning bill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 - History of ecstasy (MDMA): It was discovered in 1912, but for a while, no one could see any use for it. The CIA experimented with it as an interrogation tool in the 1950 and 60's, and by the 1970's, it was being used by some psychologists to help with therapy (everything from couples' therapy to dealing with PTSD). At some point, it also got out into the nightlife, although it didn't really take off until the early 80's. In 1985 the DEA (in the US) started putting drugs in classifications: Schedule I, II, III. Schedule I are the big baddies, the ones you under absolutely no circumstances should have unless you want to go to jail for a long time. Psychologists lobbied to keep it Schedule III and do more clinical testing on it, and the judge overseeing it also recommended that. The DEA went Schedule I with it. Then an appeals court told them to reconsider, but again the DEA just pulled rank and kept it Schedule I. As a result, all clinical trials stopped. No one, therefore, actually knows what the benefits or drawbacks might be for psychology. In addition, the media coverage brought the drug out of obscurity, leading to higher recreational use than before it was illegal.
> 
> 2- General disclaimer: As always, my witches customize their chemicals (and they make sure they have pure stuff). Since this is a magic potion, it did exactly what I wanted it to do and nothing else. Real life isn't like that.


	12. Sam 3

Sam should be used to the mind-fuck that is his life by now. Suddenly feeling like an entire room of strange witches are his best friends and spilling out all his angst to them is nothing. It really doesn’t even measure on his scale of personal violations. Still, it bothers him.

His friends don’t look like they’re happy to see him, but then, they don’t look happy about anything. It’s quiet around their table, everyone picking listlessly at their breakfast plates. Kevin has his head propped up on a hand. Next to him, Lys is sitting stiffly, with Allan, the old guy, on her other side, sipping a coffee calmly and looking around. Kate and Charlie are slumped into each other, exhausted. Dean plows resolutely through his food. Cas, sitting next to him and eating nothing, drops a hand on his upper arm. Dean lifts his shoulder, shrugging him off without looking his way.

“Your mood is chemical,” Allan says, watching him over his coffee cup. “It’s an aftereffect of yesterday’s potion. You’ll feel pretty terrible today, but it should normalize by tomorrow.”

“Anything you can’t cope with at that point is your own problem,” Lys adds with a little smirk. Sam’s not sure if she’s actually cheered up, or if her basic mood is just cheery in comparison to the rest of the table.

“So tomorrow we’ll start the therapy,” Allan continues. He’s still looking straight at Sam. Wait, what?

“He talked straight through the end of the trial, Allan. I don’t think he was listening,” Lys says, rolling her eyes.

“Oh. Well, officially, Alyssa was cleared. As she should have been,” he says firmly. “But it does seem as if there’s been some inadvertent contamination. The council agreed to set her free again, but only on the condition that she undergo a purification ritual. Conveniently enough, we believe the same treatment will also reverse the effects of the first trial you underwent. You too need to be purified.”

Oh, so it’s one of those. Sam isn’t surprised. “Fine. How far up the pain scale are we going to go this time?”

Allan is staring at him with a look of undisguised horror. “It should be painless.”

******************************

Twenty-four hours later, Sam’s in the basement (where else?) of Lys’ house, still looking for the catch. This ritual just seems too easy. There’s no knives, no blood, not even any books of magic spells, just a whole bunch of little bowls filled with different colored pastes and raw eggs scattered across a table. How is this going to fix anything?

“Alright, listen up,” Lys says, resting her elbows on the table between them. “You know how we talked about animas?”

“Badness particles?”

“Uh... close enough. You know how to get rid of them already - holy water, an exorcism, blah blah blah. Those are quick and dirty tricks, though. Like knocking down a wall with asbestos in it, every time you do it without the right protection, you’re in a bad situation, and you’re damaging yourself.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, no wonder you’re so fucked up.”

Sam is surprised into laughing. “Damn, don’t sugarcoat it.”

“It’s the truth. Anyway, this is different. It doesn’t just shove animas around, it neutralizes them.”

“How?”

Lys sighs like she’s annoyed to have to explain this, but Sam’s not fooled. If there’s one thing in the world Lys does love, it’s her magic.

“You know how noise-canceling headphones work?”

“No.”

“They recognize the sound wave of noise coming in, and they broadcast exactly the same wave, only 180 degrees off. If you were to look at it on a graph, everywhere there was a dip in the noise, the headphones would be sending out an identical peak. The two waves cancel each other out. And that’s basically what we’re going to do. Find the negative wave, broadcast the opposite, and neutralize it.”

“But... I thought we were talking about particles, not waves.”

“Oh, they’re the same thing. Not at the same time, necessarily, but - listen, I promise I’ll explain it in more detail later. Just trust me. It’s weird, but that’s physics for you. Maybe it’ll be easiest if we just jump right in with something easy, as an example. Is there any little thing that’s bothering you right now?”

He smiles, a little embarrassed. “I took the towels and soap from the hotel.”

“Why... No, never mind, I don’t care. That’s perfect. So focus on that feeling for a second. Where do you feel it most?”

Sam waits, but nothing happens. “Nowhere,” he says, moving to scratch his hand.

“Aha!” She points at his hand. “That itch, that’s where it is. Makes sense, it’s your hands that did the taking,” Lys says, reaching for one of the little bowls. The paste inside is an unnatural green.

Sam leans back. “What makes it that color?”

“Arsenic,” she deadpans, then laughs at his face. “No, food coloring. Colors help call up certain feelings. Gimme your hand, the itchy one.” He does. She smears a thick layer of the paste over his palm. It’s grainy and cold. She picks up a raw egg. “Okay, this is gonna seem weird, but I really need you to pay attention. I’m looking for the right vibration, now. Like tuning a radio... the egg’s my dial. Come on, turn up the volume for me - concentrate on what’s bothering you. Okay... yeah, there it is. It’s harder to move right here, there’s a little friction. Now I’m gonna send out the opposite thing. Look me in the eye.” He does. “Nobody gives a shit about the towels in a place like that. They’ve already budgeted for the loss. Don’t get any ideas about my towels here at the house, though, you klepto.”

The laugh that bursts out of Sam surprises even him. His hand is cold. And the egg - the egg is faintly glowing, just like it would if you held it up to a light.

“It’s all in there, now. Here, take it.” Lys tips the egg into his sticky palm. Sam watches as the glow slowly subsides. “It’s neutralized. And now we have to get rid of it.”

“How?”

“Throw it against the wall.”

He does. It shatters, smearing yellow yolk and blue paste down the wall, and he doesn’t know why, but he does feel a little better.

“Okay. Now you do it to me.”

“What?”

She reaches forward and dips a finger into a gray paste, then dabs it onto her temple. “I’m tired. I haven’t gotten enough sleep in such a long time.”

“I can’t fix that.”

“Either you do, or neither one of us ever gets out of here.” She adds impatiently, “This is my punishment, Sam. They’re saying, ‘If you like this guy so much better than us, see if he can heal you.’ They’re making a point.”

“Shit. So we can’t get out.”

“Of course we can. They’re just expecting it to take a long time and be a big hassle. But you’ve cast some seriously powerful spells in the past, and you’re perfectly capable of doing this.”

Sam’s doubtful, but it can’t hurt to give a shot. He picks up an egg, then awkwardly clears his throat. Lys makes an impatient sound and pulls it close, pressing it to the side of her head.

“Just do it.”

He feels stupid, but he moves the egg around, trying to tell if something feels different. Wait - did it just slow down? He drags it back over the spot he found. It could be his imagination, but he thinks something’s different.

“I think I found it.”

“Concentrate on the exact opposite of exhaustion. Send that through into the egg.”

“How?”

“See it happening. Send the wave over to me. Talk about what you’re thinking, it helps you focus,” Lys mutters, trying to keep her head still.

Think soothing, Sam tells himself. “Rest. Sleep. Um... rest...”

Lys huffs in irritation, and Sam puts the egg back down.

“I can’t do it, Lys. Healing’s not my thing.” Lys gives him a sharp kick in the shin. “Ow!”

“This isn’t about you. So get over yourself, and get on with it.”

“Fine.” That stung, and when he holds the egg back to her head, he’s not feeling in a healing mood. “I’ve seen you pull plenty of all-nighters with Kate back at the bunker, and I know she wasn’t the one setting that pace. You’ve got crazy endurance when you’re working, and you’re working now. Sleep’s optional.” Suddenly, the egg under his fingers is warm. “It worked!”

“About time,” Lys snarks, but she’s smiling as she takes it from him. Another yolk paints the wall. “Now we have to get serious.”

*************************************

Sam is good at serious. It’s easy for him to list off plenty of things that weigh him down. All the regrets and mistakes, three decades of life in dirty motel rooms that seem like they’ve rubbed off on his face, until now he can’t walk past a family in a gas station without the mother subtly pulling her youngest closer. His losses were harder to talk about - family and friends and even, what seems like a lifetime ago, that sweet girl he thought he was going to be with forever - but his chest is streaked with colors in remembrance of them now. The eggs didn’t take away his wounds, but they do feel a little less rotten and infected. Lys was surprisingly good about it. When she said she was sorry, he actually believed her.

Healing, it turns out, is harder than being healed. Lys’ concerns so far have been minor. She worries about how well she teaches her classes, if she encourages Kate enough, if she’s been sloppy in her work. Sam’s surprised - who knew she cared? - but it’s hardly shocking stuff. Still, he struggles to tune in, and when he finally does catch the trouble, he’s at a loss for words to say to counter it. This isn’t exactly part of Sam’s usual skill set. He throws whatever he can out there, and so far, it’s worked.

They’re not done, though. Sam can feel that, in himself, at least. He can’t put a name to it, though. Something’s just wrong.

“Um, I’m kind of... at a loss for words, here.”

Lys doesn’t seem surprised. “Good. Then we’re getting into your subconscious.”

“How can we fix something if I don’t know what it is?”

“Your body knows. Where is it? No, don’t think about it, just feel. Tell me where it is.”

Maybe it’s all the practice he’s had with the method, but Sam can tell her almost immediately. 

“The middle of of my back. Like, between the shoulder blades. It feels like I’m bleeding. Not literally but like... something is leaking out. All my energy.”

Lys nods seriously, then moves behind him and tugs the hem of his t-shirt up, tucking it through the neck hole to keep it out of the way.

“Jackpot. That sounds like major damage. Which color?”

How is Sam supposed to know? His eye is drawn by the black paste, though.

“Black.”

Behind him, he can Lys inhale thoughtfully. “I wondered when we’d get to black,” she says, applying first the paste, then the egg. “It’s such a weird color, you know? It absorbs all wavelengths - like evil, it takes everything and doesn’t give you a thing back. Light, energy, it can’t get beyond it. Black is a wall across the highway, the end of the line. So it’s the color for evil - but also for protection from evil. I’ve always associated you with black.”

Sam stiffens a little. “How should I take that?”

“However you want. In this case, the symbolism could go either way. Is something blocked, or do you need to block something? And then there’s the shoulders. A weight on your shoulders? Or a target on your back? What’s that about?”

“Maybe all of the above.”

Lys laughs softly. “Yeah, maybe.”

Something about this triggers a childhood memory of doctor’s offices. “It’s also where the doctor listens to your breathing with a stethoscope. Do witches see the doctor?”

“Of course we do. But let’s follow that association while we’ve got it. Be quiet, let’s listen to your breathing.”

There’s nothing wrong with it. Which is saying something, because it hurt to breathe for a long time. Sam got used to tasting iron at the back of his throat, his mouth filling up with blood when he coughed. The taste of blood, in one way or another that’s been with him from the start -

“What are you thinking about?” Lys interrupts sharply. “The egg just snagged, hard. We found it, whatever it is.”

“I was thinking about blood. About... tasting it. How that’s been kind of a theme for me.” Sam laughs weakly, but Lys doesn’t respond. “I was never normal. Never had a chance, from the time I was a baby. And I can’t even have a normal existential crisis. Normal people can ask why they’re here, they can try to find their purpose, but I know why I’m here, my purpose is to end the world.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Right. I am... purposeless. On purpose.” Again he tries to laugh, again Lys is silent behind him. “I keep trying to do something, to make my life about something else, but it never works out. So the question becomes, why am I still here? What’s the point? Everything I do, it all comes back to blood.” He sighs. “You can’t fix this, Lys, because it’s me. The contamination? That is me.”

Quietly, Lys says, “You sure think a lot of yourself, don’t you? Maybe you’re the villain instead of the hero, but you’re definitely the star of the show... You wanted to be normal, Sam. None of us have a grand purpose, just a lot of little decisions we make every day. You just try to make more good than bad.”

“Easier said than done.”

“No shit. But one good choice would be to stop going in circles like an idiot. Yeah, I figured you’d sit up straight at that. Nobody talks to you like that, do they? Especially not Dean. You said it yourself under the truth spell. He always wants to support you, never for you to support him. You know that’s fucked up, but what’s your response? You want him to see things your way, to give you what you need - and what is that but supporting you? It’s one of your typical paradoxes.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Sure it is, Sam, you’re the king of paradoxes. You’re the guy who let Lucifer out and caged him back up again. We wouldn’t need you if it weren’t for you. You just go round and round.”

Trust Lys to know how to make you feel like shit. Sam’s head has been dropping lower as she talks. He never said he was a good person. More like the opposite.

Lys’ voice shifts as she watches him. “Are you hearing me, Sam? Fuck the blood. It doesn’t make you any less human - and it doesn’t make you anything more, either. You’re just you, making a human mistake. You don’t like where you are? Then quit feeding into it.”

The egg on his back is starting to feel uncomfortably warm. Sam shifts awkwardly. “It isn’t always that simple.”

Lys presses hard against his back. The egg is stinging as if it’ll leave a burn. “Okay, but let me just emphasize, the most powerful spell I have ever unravelled was cast by someone who didn’t even know what the fuck he was doing. If you were a trained witch you’d have my job. If you were an old-school witch hunter I’d be running for my life. The problem isn’t that you can’t do anything. It’s that if you head off in the wrong direction, you can get a long way before anyone can turn you around. But not doing anything isn’t the answer, either.”

Everything is cold now. Everything except that fiery egg at his back. Sam tries to suppress a shudder. “So what’s the answer?”

“Fuck if I know. But you’re good at impossible things, Sam, so why don’t you figure it out. Just promise to tell me when you do.”

Sam doesn’t doesn’t feel that itch between his shoulder blades anymore. Even the egg is starting to cool.

“I think it worked.”

“We got it,” Lys confirms, handing him the egg. Underneath the smeared black on her hand, the skin is bright red. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just got a little scalded.”

“We could’ve stopped... why didn’t you say anything?”

Lys just taps his back, and Sam winces. Ouch.

“Why didn’t you?”

The egg shatters. They both watch it with satisfaction.

“Okay. One last one for me, and I think we’re finally done,” Lys says, already rubbing her hands in anticipation.

****************************************

Thirty minutes later, neither of them are so excited. Sam’s been moving an egg over Lys’ wrists so long he’s surprised the white paste hasn’t been scrubbed into her skin, and every time he thinks he feels some friction, the egg slides off again.

“There’s something here, but I can’t get to it. It’s like it’s slippery.”

Lys makes a frustrated noise, and Sam glances up from her wrists to her face. Her eyes flicker past his without meeting his. Something’s up.

“You know what’s wrong, don’t you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why are you acting so weird? What are you hiding?”

“Sam, I swear to you I’m not.”

“Maybe that is the problem, then. You’re not letting me in.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“Not on purpose...”

For a minute, it’s quiet. Lys’ face relaxes, tenses, relaxes... and then tenses. Sam can’t help it, he has to laugh, just a little.

“Shut the fuck up,” Lys snaps, but Sam’s dealt with her too long to be intimidated now.

“Jesus, Lys, lighten up. It’s just an absurd situation. We finally found something you can’t do -”

Maybe he made it up, but it felt like something in her wrists just twitched.

“Is that what it is? You’re bothered because you’re the patient right now, instead of the doctor?”

The egg slides away. 

“Dammit! C’mon, I thought you had so much faith in what I could do. But you don’t trust me to fix you.”

That softens her - as Sam expected. He’s not above using a guilt trip at this point.

“Don’t take it personally, Sam. I’m not in the habit of trusting anybody.”

The egg catches again. Sam keeps his eyes firmly up on Lys’ face. Don’t let her think about it...

“So it’s a one-way street, then. All those kids showed up to testify because they believed in you. But you don’t have to give them anything back?”

“That’s different,” Lys snaps angrily. “They trust me to do my work well, and yeah, I expect the same out of them. It’s not personal.”

The egg is starting to heat. Sam presses harder, hoping she doesn’t notice.

“Okay fine, what about Kate? You can’t tell me she just sees you as her boss. Would you trust her to heal you?”

She hesitates.

“You wouldn’t, wouldn’t you? You just can’t stand to be the weak one.”

Lys starts to pull her wrist away, but Sam grabs it. 

“Hey, why would you want to, it sucks. I hated needing help all the time. I had to trust you when I didn’t even know you, and that wasn’t easy. But here I am, still above ground. I owe you.” The egg starts to slide. Sam struggles to hold it in place as Lys shakes her head dismissively. “Besides,” he adds hurriedly, trying to keep the traction he’d gained earlier, “Dean’s kinda adopted you at this point, and he’s crazy loyal.” Sam laughs awkwardly. “Seriously, you can’t shake him. You’re stuck with us now.”

The distraction works. Lys smiles, however fleetingly. “I like your brother, and I trust him... to be what he is. But overall? We’re too different.”

The only thing keeping Sam from giving up in frustration is the fact that the egg’s stuck again. This is turning into a debate - so he pauses, and collects an argument.

“But I am like you. If I were a witch, I’d be one of yours. Actually, if I were a witch I might have your job, that’s what you said. And I might not have your training, but you’ve got to admit I’ve got the experience. We’re equals. And you’ve explained your philosophy, I’ve seen how you operate, I’ve even gotten used to your shitty attitude.” 

Lys laughs, and Sam feels like he hasn’t in a long time, like he just trudged up a hill with a sled and now it’s all a clear path downhill. He’s got this.

“I want to keep up a connection with you. Friends, allies, you can give it whatever name you want, the point is I’d like for us to keep helping each other. Can we do that?”

He’s already bracing the hot egg for the slide he knows is coming, and almost smashes it when nothing happens. Lys just nods.

“Yeah, okay. We can do that.”

“Then we have to work together. I can get us out of here - but only if you let me in.”

Nothing happens. Sam waits. Then her shoulders drop an inch, and the egg starts stinging his fingers. He holds out until he can tell it’s cooling again, and then pulls back, tipping it into Lys’ waiting palm.

“It’s done.”

She turns to shatter it. They watch the yolk streak down the wall for a minute. Then Lys turns back to him, and the smile on her face is wicked.

“I can’t wait to see those motherfuckers’ faces when we tell ‘em we’re already done.”

Sam gets to his feet and holds a hand down for her. She looks a lot smaller than she used to, standing with her hands on her hips over his sickbed. It takes almost no effort to pull her to her feet. He feels stronger than he has in a long time. The urge to thank Lys washes over him, but he lets it pass. Instead he slaps her on the shoulder.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Lys pounds on the door for a few seconds before a flustered-looking pair of women open it.

“We’re done.”

“What? But-”

“We’re just that good. C’mon, ladies, bust out the industrial-strength holy water.”

One of them fumbles a flask out of her pocket and hands it to Lys, who gasps after her sip as if it were refreshing. Sam is a little more cautious. He’s never brought it up to anyone, but holy water always tingles a little on his skin. The water hits his tongue and... it’s just water. Huh. He hands the flask back to the guard.

“Okay... It seems alright... but we haven’t even started getting the baths ready!”

“What now?” Sam asks Lys, already resigned to more weirdness.

“We gotta wash the paint off anyway - they throw in some salt and herbs and things, just to kinda seal in the freshness,” she explains, then turns back to their guards. “It’s not our fault you guys don’t have your shit together. We’re not waiting around. C’mon, Sam.” The women trail them nervously as Lys leads them upstairs into her kitchen. She hands him a cardboard box of cooking salt and jerks her thumb towards the staircase. “Your shit should still be in your room. Use the whole box, soak until it’s cold.”

****************************************

The hot water is soothing, but the paints have all swirled together to dye the water black. Sam looks down at himself surrounded in darkness. The words of the solstice ceremony come back to him. “The dark of the basement,” and isn’t that where he always seems to end up. But, he reminds himself as he leans back, never for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaaat? A chapter? Listen guys, I may have slowed to a snail's pace, but I have been left hanging too many times to ever not finish a story. If there's anyone out there still interested, I promise you, 100% for certain, I will finish this, and relatively soon. I just gotta take an epic, multi-hour oral exam spanning all of the English canon between Chaucer and Salman Rushdie soon. So have pity on my slowness.
> 
> 1- "Anything you can't cope with at that point is your own problem" - Lys is quoting a situation in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Trilogy, where they are caught in an improbablilty field and then return to normality.
> 
> 2- As I understand it (and they say if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics), the only way you can explain how the basic building blocks of the universe move around is sometimes to talk about them like particles, and sometimes like waves. Even though these are two contradictory ways to see the world, that's the only way that explains the experiments. It's a duality paradox. So basically, the entire universe is built on something that cannot logically be true. Seriously? I don't get it. But I love it.


	13. Dean 3

The witches promised, and he did look better, but Dean knew Sam was really healed when he started to argue about books.

“Dean doesn’t own the bunker,” he’d protested. “He can’t just give you everything. The Men of Letters is my legacy too - more so, even, since I’m the only one that cares much about it. I need that information too, and I never agreed to give it up.”

“You were too busy drowning in your own blood to agree. Don’t pretend you don’t owe me this,” Lys had countered.

Sam convinced her to wait until they were all back at the bunker together. He even made her promise to call when her flight landed in Kansas, as if, if she decided to clean them out, he could have done something about it from the passenger seat of the Impala somewhere in Ohio. 

Lys waited for them, though, and then she and Sam went right back to their little debate match, this time in the library itself. Kate and Charlie had shot Dean these little “help, stop them!” winces, and he’d just grinned and shrugged. Sam was healthy, and as an added bonus, apparently not determined to walk away from hunting, the supernatural, and Dean anymore. Lys would probably win, Sam would definitely be pissed, but Dean didn’t regret a damn thing. Anyway, it wasn’t like anybody was trading punches.

In the end, it was Kate and Charlie who came up with the solution. It’s something to do with scanning the books and putting them in some kind of “cloud”. Those two lovebirds are really excited about working together, but all it means to Dean is he’s got to clear his throat extra loud before he goes into the library, just in case. Two girls making out is theoretically hot, but not when one of them’s basically your kid sister.

The bunker’s artifacts can’t be scanned, obviously, but Lys and Sam have finally worked that out, too. They spend a lot of time wandering through the different rooms, sorting things into piles. The Winchesters get all the weapons, Lys gets anything that might be useful for spellcraft, and both sides promise to share if needed. It’s a good deal. Cas makes the rounds with them - sometimes he’s the only one who can tell them what the thing even is - and Kevin comes along in case he can translate something. Dean’s got fuck-all to offer on that project, but everybody else is busy and he’s bored. So he spends his days trailing after the rest of his friends, only half-understanding the conversation and getting in trouble for touching stuff. 

And that’s supposed to be a problem? They’re safe, they’re happy, they’re here. Shut the fuck up, Winchester, he reminds himself. Yeah, the quiet makes you nervous, but that’s just cause you’re fucked up. Let everyone else enjoy it - while it lasts.

Cause it’s coming to an end, this lull. They always do. So Dean’s making contingency plans. Charlie and Kate’ll probably be fine. They’ll leave the bunker and go off to do some lovey-dovey thing somewhere and no one will bother them. Or they’ll go with Lys, and Dean’s not worried about her. Maybe he can pass Kevin off onto her somehow, too. Anywhere is safer than being with Cas or the Winchesters, that’s for sure.

Sam, now, he’s going to be a problem when the shit hits the fan. Dean’s having trouble reading him. Sam’s got that thoughtful look, the one that suggests he’s working out some problem in his head, and that’s never a good sign. But he’s also being weird, always eyeballing Dean. Not in the way he used to, big puppy dog eyes of feelings, but like he’s taking notes or something, like he’s waiting on Dean to do something. It’s fucking uncomfortable.

And Cas? There’s no point in worrying about what’ll happen to Cas if and when the next disaster comes along, cause he knows the guy, and he knows that, A, Cas never listens to anything Dean says, and B, he probably won’t stick around long enough to hear it anyway. Theoretically Cas knows he’s got Dean’s help if he needs it, but it’s not like he’s got a lot to offer. Cas is all about power, angelic or magic or whatever, and all Dean’s really got is a certain skill with knives and a willingness to bleed.

*****************************************

Dammit, they really need to settle on a dinner time. Dean’s tired of rounding everybody up every night. It’s like herding cats. Where the hell are Cas and Lys?

He gets all the way to the basement again before he hears Cas groan in pain. Shit, he thinks, hurrying to throw open the door - just in time to see him slam against the wall. Lys is standing on the other side of the room, the hand she obviously just used to throw him still up in the air.  
 “Hey!” Dean shouts. “What are you -”

“Fuck,” Cas curses loudly in frustration. It sounds so weird coming out of his mouth that Dean’s momentarily derailed. Lys is already heading across the room to Cas, wearing a big smile. Okay... Dean thinks, let’s try this again. Calmer this time.

“Cas, you okay?”

“Yes. Lys is still stronger than me, apparently.”

“Not by much, though,” Lys says cheerfully, pulling him up. “You let the door distract you, otherwise you might have worn me down.”

“So you guys are... what, arm-wrestling with magic?”

“Basically,” Lys nods. 

“I think it would be wise to know the limits of my abilities,” Cas says, serious as always.

Jesus. “Okay, well, there’s food, if you magic types still need to eat.”

Lys rolls her eyes and brushes past him. Cas smiles and puts a hand on Dean’s arm. “Even if I didn’t need to, I think I would keep doing it. It’s very enjoyable. Thank you for showing me that.”

Now it’s Dean’s turn to roll his eyes as he turns away. “Yeah, yeah, c’mon before it gets cold.”

*****************************************

Okay, Sam and Lys are doing this for fun, now. As the group wanders through the bunker’s basements, they take constant little jabs at each other, one debate after another. And Dean thinks it’s starting to get old.

“Excuse me? Did you just call us ‘you people’?” Sam asks, but he sounds amused.

“Yeah, ‘you people’. The ones who don’t know what they’re playing around with. You’ve got your dabblers who got their hands on the wrong book, maybe the odd psychic or whatever, but most of the time they’re harmless. They don’t know where to get hemlock or they orient their sigils wrong or whatever, and the spell’s a dud. But you hunters, you’ve got just enough smarts to do some real damage.”

Sam’s ready with his argument. “Yeah, but what’s knowledge without action? You know so much, but you just sit back and let people suffer?”

“Yeah. Who could do that,” Dean mutters, shooting Sam a dark look. The kid’s short-term memory must be completely fucked.

“I helped you, didn’t I?” Lys counters.

“But we got lucky. We knew to come and ask. And there’s only one of you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, very grateful, but what else happened while I was sick that you couldn’t take care of? Why shouldn’t hunters pick up what they can?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that, but let’s turn the argument around. What good is action without knowledge? This stuff takes time to understand. If you don’t take that time, you’re more dangerous than helpful.”

“Oh, come on, you’re being dramatic. Give me one good example.” 

Sam and Lys were leading the group. Now sidetracked, everyone’s trailed to a standstill, leaning against tables and crates while Sam and Lys face off and Kevin and Cas watch with interest, their heads going back and forth like this is a good tennis match.

“Can we go?” Dean asks. 

No one answers him. Lys leans forward, smiling like she’s got a winning example ready.

“Massachusetts, 2003. These hunters thought they’d found some super-strong exorcism in a book. Actually, it opened tiny little doors to Hell. One demon goes away, they waltz off feeling proud, then ten come back. Really fucking helpful.”

“Shit. Okay, you have a point.”

“How’d you fix it?” Kevin asks, and Lys laughs.

“You can’t undo a spell you didn’t cast. So... yeah, there are some parts of Boston that are literally hellholes.”

“But if you found those hunters -” Sam starts to say.

“They wouldn’t listen to us anyway. We’re the bad guys, remember? So we keep what we know to ourselves.”

“Maybe better just to leave it alone,” Dean mutters. This time, Lys hears him.

“Yeah, and we could all still be living in trees too. Except even chimpanzees fish for termites with twigs. Fish swim, birds fly, primates screw with stuff. That’s who we are.”

Kevin, Cas, and Sam nod like Lys just said the sky was blue. Okay, fine, Dean’s the only one that believes in good old-fashioned monster-fighting. Whatever.

“So it’s not the attitude that bothers you, it’s the training. What if hunters were trained right?” Sam follows up.

“But they’re not.”

“But if they were,” he insists.

“Fine, yeah. I’d be okay with that,” Lys concedes.

Dean decides to just keep walking and hope the others will follow him. Cas does. Kevin follows a minute later, and finally, Sam and Lys trail behind, still debating.

*****************************************

Dean wasn’t the kind of teenager to hide in his room and sulk when he was upset. He didn’t have a room, for one thing. Maybe he’s making up for it now. It’s probably not getting him anywhere to lay on his bed with his headphones on, but it’s taking him away, and that’s good enough.

Something jerks at his foot. He opens his eyes to find Sam looming over him.

“Hey, man, learn to knock,” he grumbles.

“I did. Learn about volume control,” Sam counters. 

For a minute, Dean waits. Sam just stands there awkwardly.

“Well?”

“Uh... I wanted to ask you something. About Cas.”

Dean sits up straight. “What about him?”

“What’s... what’s the plan there?”

“Sam, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It just seems like he’s gearing up for something. I think he’s thinking about the angels, and he’s going to try to do something.”

Dean sighs, and nods. “Yeah, seems like it.”

“Would you go with him?”

Okay, what’s all this about? Dean shifts uncomfortably.

“Look, if the guy asked me I’d help him, yeah, but he’s not askin’.”

Sam leans forward. “I don’t think he should go, not alone. You should talk to him about it. Get him to stay.”

Dean laughs. “You think he’ll listen?”

“If he’ll listen to anyone, it’s you.”

“So, no, is what you’re saying,” Dean says tightly. This conversation’s getting old.

Sam’s already moving to the door, so he must know he’s pushing it. “I’m just saying, what does it hurt to ask?”

It’s never the question that hurts, dumbass, Dean thinks. It’s the answer. He puts his headphones back on, closes his eyes, and doesn’t think about it.

He carried Cas’ face in his mind every day he was in Purgatory, the memory and the goal, fighting his way through to the real thing, and he never doubted he’d get there. All those unanswered prayers, and he never lost faith, because he knew he wouldn’t stop until he found him. And he did, and it wasn’t good enough. Cas threw his hand away.

Once - no, twice now - he’s thought that face would be the last thing he ever saw, looking up from his knees at his blood on Cas’ hands. He’s a fucking punching bag, he guesses, but Dean doesn’t even hold it against the guy. Cas has busted him up, yeah, but he’s put him back together again, too. 

And every time he thinks he’s seen the last of Cas, that face shows up somewhere else again, living under a different name without his memory, popping up in flashes after Purgatory, calling him on a pay phone from the middle of nowhere while Lys did her work over Sam. At this point, if he never came back, Dean would still never stop seeing him around corners and in turned backs. Because with Cas, you never know.

Except for that one time, when the witches drugged them, and Cas wiggled up to him with the softest, most open look he’s ever seen on his face, and Dean did know for sure that right then, Cas was happy. Dean was too, really happy, touching him, and later sprawled on a big soft bed alone in his own hotel room, rubbing his fingers over his own lips and floating on a wave of wanting that was nice in its own way - and then he woke up the next morning and felt like shit. 

So, all in all, it’s a good thing Dean’s just listening to music, and not thinking about anything.

****************************************

Dean’s never really alone with Cas. He never noticed until now. He waits and watches - but no convenient moment ever presents itself. If Dean wants to feel Cas out on his plans, he’ll have to make the right time happen.

When Cas opens the door to his room, he’s rubbing at his eyes.

“Oh - were you already asleep?” Dean asks. Okay, forget it, this isn’t the right time.

But Cas has already stepped aside, waving him in. “I’ve been pushing my magical abilities as far as I can. It’s very tiring.”

Fuck it. Dean steps inside. “Yeah, about that... What’s the plan, Cas?”

Cas sighs and sits back down on his crumpled blankets. Dean leans awkwardly against the wall. “The angels fell because of me.”

“And you’re gonna fix that how?”

“I don’t know that I can. But I created this mess, and I can’t - I shouldn’t - just walk away from it now. This is my responsibility.”

“Yeah, but... you’re not as strong as you used to be, Cas. All it takes is one pissed off angel, and you’re done.”

Cas nods calmly, as if he expected this conversation. “I know I have human weaknesses. But magic has given me back many of my angel strengths. I’m preparing, and I won’t leave until I’m ready. I’ll be careful.”

For a minute, Dean’s angry at Lys. “Magic. You sure that isn’t gonna go bad?”

“I’m only doing what Lys taught me.”

“So you’re taking her word for it.”

Cas tilts his head. “What has she done to lose your trust?”

Dean sighs. “Nothing, Cas. Just... experience tells me that if it seems too easy, something’s wrong. And this seems easy.”

“It’s not. The technique is to amplify your sense of self,” Cas says vaguely. He isn’t meeting Dean’s eyes, and that’s starting to worry him. Lys said witches were susceptible to using demon shortcuts to power, and Cas has dealt with them before, so...

“Cas. I want to believe what you’re saying, but you gotta help me understand.”

And there they are, Cas’ eyes locked in on him again. 

“Your will makes your spell happen. As long as you live, it can never be fully drained, but you can become distracted and lost, so that you can’t draw on it. To re-strengthen yourself, you find a touchstone. Something that reminds you of who you are, what you care about. If you have one, your power increases. Lys has many, which is one secret of her success.”

“And how about you?”

He makes a noncommittal movement. “I haven’t been my human self for long. There’s not much to draw on.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that, man.”

“No, don’t be. This existence has its own charms, most of which you’ve shown me. And so I do have one touchstone... I depend on its strength.”

Cas’ eyes have slid away again. 

“What is it?” Dean presses suspiciously.

“I’ll show you,” Cas says, extending his left hand. The little bluish-white ball he’s brought up before appears there, hovering just over his palm. “Do you know what this is?”

“That’s your juice.”

“It’s a representation of my power to do magic. Yes.”

“There used to be a spell for that.”

“I don’t need the words anymore. Now I know where to find it, it’s always there.”

See, this is the kind of thing that creeps Dean out. Normal humans can’t just make glowy shit with their minds.

Cas reaches for his shoulder, and he holds still and lets Cas press his fingers down. And nothing happens.

“Look,” Cas says, holding his left hand between them. The ball has gotten bigger and brighter.

“Okay...”

Cas lets go of his shoulder. The ball dims. He takes firm hold again, and that ball lights back up. What the fuck.

“But... I don’t feel anything,” he protests.

Cas steps back, and the light flicks out. “It’s not coming from you. It’s just that I... I understand my human self because of what you’ve taught me. So... you help focus me. That’s all.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And so I would say my power source is good.”

Dean forces a sarcastic laugh. “Not so sure about that, buddy.” Cas just stands there quietly, like he’s out of words. After an awkward minute, Dean clears his throat. “Okay. Well. Just be careful, is what I’m sayin’.”

“I will be.”

“Okay. Get some sleep.”

Yeah, Dean’s not gonna think about this, either. Too weird.

****************************************

Other than Sam’s health, Dean and Lys don’t exactly have much to talk about, and that’s why he likes working with her. She’ll shoot the shit if you want, but you never have to try to figure out what she’s thinking - you just focus on getting things done, and if she’s not happy, she’ll damn well let you know. Things are simple with her. Dean can appreciate that.

Besides, no one else appreciates the importance of gun maintenance. Kate and Charlie are too busy staring at each other, Sam and Cas are too full of big ideas, and Kevin is inexperienced - but Lys thinks cleaning a gun is “meditative”, and she’s patient and thorough. Working next to someone calm, Dean’s head clears too.

“You can’t think of a magic way to clean guns?” he idly asks Lys.

“I guess I could. But then I wouldn’t get to hang out with you...” she drawls. The sarcasm’s light enough that he laughs, and lets it go with just a half-hearted kick to her ankle.

“So if you had the right magic formula or whatever, could you do anything you wanted?”

She shrugs. “There are things magic can’t do... yet. Most research centers around avoiding death, gaining power, having sex, getting love - you know, the basic drives.”

Love is a drive? Since when? Dean laughs, “Love? What, like you could make someone fall in love with me and do whatever I want?”

Lys cuts her eyes over at him and answers dryly, “Are you asking me for a supernatural date rape drug?”

Dean’s face falls. “Oh. Well, when you put it like that...” 

“Just man the fuck up and ask the guy out.”

Dean’s body locks up so tight some of his muscles actually protest in pain. “Hey, whoa, what guy? Who’s saying anything about a guy?!”

“That over-the-top reaction there, that’s what. Plus your friends are a lesbian, your brother, a barely-legal boy, and a guy you stare at all the fucking time. So.” Lys keeps on cleaning her gun, like she didn’t just drop a bomb out of the blue.

“I don’t stare at him!”

That’s her “I’ve got you now” smile. He recognizes it from her arguments with Sam. 

“But you don’t argue that you’re interested? Look, man, I don’t give a fuck either way, but I can tell you something. You want some magic? Working a spell is all about concentrating on the thing you want, really seeing it, feeling it - and then finding the right words to say so. You know what you want? Then grow a pair and ask for it.”

“Shut up,” is the only thing he can get out of his mouth.

Lys isn’t particularly impressed. “Okay. Just sayin’,” she says, turning back to her gun.

They finish their work in silence.

*****************************************

Lys has a point, though. Not that point. Just that if he doesn’t want Cas to leave him behind, he should say so. Dean’s his touchstone. He said he needed him - well, whatever it is he does to Cas’ power. He said that, “I depend on its strength.” So maybe he’s gonna go do something suicidally stupid, but he doesn’t have to go alone.

He knocks on Cas’ door. The guy answers with his hair sticking up all over the place, rubbing at his face with a hand. Still, he moves aside and tells Dean, “Come in.”

There’s no leaning back against the wall this time. Dean’s got to get it out quick, before he feels too stupid.

“Take me when you go. You need me. Or whatever I do for you. And there’s still a whole lot you don’t know about being human. I can help.”

Cas’ mind appears to be slowly waking up. “I expect it to be dangerous,” he says slowly. “I can’t protect you.”

Dean shakes his head impatiently. “Fuck that, I don’t need protecting.” He grabs for Cas’ shoulder, and sees him straighten up, like he’s already got a little more power. “I make you stronger, right?”

“It doesn’t have to be physical contact with you,” Cas answers. “The thought works...”  “But this is better, right?” He’s got both hands on Cas now, sliding up towards his neck, soft under his fingers, and Dean halfway wants to throttle him, looking at him with that stupid, self-sacrificing face. “We gotta stop this, man.”

“What?” Cas asks quietly. 

“This... you gotta stop leaving me. Stop it.” Dean’s voice is fading too.

“I don’t want to leave. But...”

As his voice trails off, Cas drops his eyes, and Dean can feel his weight shift to his heels as he gets ready to step back, and suddenly he thinks, oh no you don’t, asshole. He grips Cas harder, and the volume of his voice climbs again.

“No, you look at me, Cas, and listen to me for once. Do you think I can’t handle myself? Do you think I’ll drag you down?” Cas is shaking his head, but Dean isn’t interested in being interrupted now. “Okay, cause that’s the only damn explanation I’m gonna accept. You are my family, I love you, and I’ll be damned if you walk away from me again.”

Cas doesn’t raise his voice. He just says what he’s got to say like this is his final offer, some kind of line in the sand. 

“You should know that I am in love with you.”

And, okay, Dean’s turned the corner into a maze, he’s lost, his brain is out back taking a smoke break or something, cause all he can do is stare at Cas for a minute.

“I mean romantically,” Cas adds.

Dean laughs so loud he might have woken up the others. The sound makes Cas cringe a little, and he starts to pull away, like he’s embarrassed, and wait, no, that’s not why Dean’s laughing, it’s just - well, screw the words, Dean’s no witch, and he doesn’t need a spell for what his body can say faster. 

The last half-foot between them feels like he’s jumping a canyon. It’s pretty damn scary, and the minute his lips touch Cas it gets even worse. One more thing to lose, one more thing to fear - Cas gasps for the air he needs now, and Dean mutters fiercely, “And I’m fucking coming with you.” It’s terrifying, up until Cas nods solemnly and jumps back across that half-foot himself, and then it’s just - well, yeah, screw the words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is one more chapter after this one, and I am more than 2/3s done with it. Too damn stubborn not to finish.


	14. Kevin 2

For a second, Kevin thinks he hears Lys’ voice coming from the library, and he stops short. If she got here overnight, something bad must be happening. Then Sam answers, and it clicks for him: speakerphone. They need to leave early today if they want to catch their flight. Sam must not want to waste time packing one-handed. 

Kevin absentmindedly pats his chest as his heart settles back into its accustomed place. He’s still got a hair trigger. Oh well. Who knows, it might keep him alive someday. In the meantime, he’s got books of his own to get together.

Sam nods at him as he comes in, but doesn’t interrupt Lys, who’s saying, “No. Nope. No way in hell.”

“Why not?” Sam frowns, then adds, “Kevin’s here, by the way.”

“Hi, Kevin. Hm, let’s see, Sam, why don’t I want murderous drifters to be able to find my witches...? Can you think of any ideas?”

“But until we teach hunters the basics, anytime they run into real magic, much less try a spell, they’re screwed. Your guys could give them information, supplies, maybe even patch them up, just like you do with us. They already have those apps for your phone where you look at who’s around you, so how hard would it be for Charlie to repurpose one...”

“Jesus, Sam, I thought you meant a directory! You know hunters aren’t exactly a stable bunch, and you want to give them GPS tracking?! No, maybe once we build up some trust, but right now, if they want help, they go through you.”

“Lys. They don’t go through me. They don’t trust me either. This is how it goes: someone gets into trouble. Assuming he survives, he calls Garth, who calls me, and I call you. That’s too many phone calls.”

Lys gives a heavy sigh. “Maybe we can set up some kind of hotline.”

Silently, Sam gives Kevin a triumphant smile, and Kevin smiles and shakes his head back. He wouldn’t call this a win for Sam, but with Lys, every compromise is kind of a victory. Now he uses the lull to jump in with his own question.

“Lys, I’ve got Babylonian prophecies and Egyptian ones. Which ones should I bring?”

“Whatever you want, Kevin. Guest lectures don’t have to fit into the normal curriculum. Remember they’re first-year kids, though. Don’t blow their minds.”

“Okay. Babylonian,” he decides, dropping the book onto his stack with a heavy thump.

Sam cuts back into the conversation. “So what’s the story on those hex bags I need?”

“The spell’s ready, I just need some hair to personalize it. You gonna keep up your end of the deal?”

“I can’t take vampire blood through airport security. Dean and Cas are gonna pick some up on the way.”

“What if they don’t find a hunt?”

“If they can’t find a vampire between Florida and Connecticut then we need to take their guns away from them. It’ll delay them a few days, but don’t worry. You know Cas won’t miss the solstice.”

“Fair enough. See you guys.”

“See you soon.”

****************************************************

Rob, Lys’ new apprentice, is waiting for them at the airport. He gives Sam a tentative, respectful handshake, then slaps Kevin’s hand in what is probably some kind of cool greeting. Rob came out to the bunker with Lys the last time she visited, and within minutes, Kevin had decided this guy was the supernatural equivalent of the smooth-talking jock that only parents and teachers love, and they were never, ever gonna get along. But appearances are deceiving. Two nights later, Kevin was drunk for maybe the first time in his life, telling an awed Rob his life story. You don’t become a self-taught witch without a lot of long nights over the books. Rob’s a nerd and a freak, too, he’s just better at covering it.

As they drive to the house, Rob says, “I should probably warn you... Charlie got here two days ago, and she’s spent the whole time decorating.”

“That’s all?” Kevin asks. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but holiday cheer definitely wasn’t it.

Rob laughs awkwardly. “I dunno, maybe you guys are used to it... I think it’s pretty weird.”

“You don’t celebrate Christmas?” Sam asks with interest.

“No. Just the solstice. My parents are a little more, uh... religious about it than Lys, but it’s basically the same thing.”

Sam nods. “We never really did Christmas either.”

From the backseat, Kevin says quietly, “I did.” 

For a minute, loss washes over him - and then they turn the corner, and Lys’ house makes him forget everything else. There are blinking lights on the roof, nets of lights draped over bushes, and even more lights dangling in swags from every window. It’s so bright you might be able to see it from space. But for some reason, there’s no seasonal colors in sight. The whole house is lit up in purple, green and gold. For Mardi Gras. Kevin’s laugh joins the others’. 

“Lys said she didn’t have anything against lights, but she wasn’t gonna celebrate her symbolic death. So Charlie picked another holiday. I think the neighbors are too scared of us to complain,” Rob says smugly.

“I think it looks amazing,” Sam says with a grin, and Kevin wholeheartedly agrees.

******************************************

Kevin’s sitting in front of a bowl of water, a lit candle, and Charlie’s cell phone.

“Guys, I don’t do magic. I don’t even want to do magic.”

“That’s what makes you perfect,” Charlie says, leaning in eagerly.

“Our app is supposed to walk you through the spell. We need someone who doesn’t already know how to concentrate their will,” Kate adds from his other side.

“Just try it once. It’s the snowflake,” Charlie says. 

Kevin sighs, then looks down at the series of little icons currently being displayed on Charlie’s phone. He taps the snowflake, and a line of text pops up, saying, “to draw out heat, you’ll need: a lit candle and a bowl of water”. Underneath, a button flashes green. “GO” it is...

A series of images start to pop up. A crackling fire in a stone fireplace, a row of lit candles in what looks like it might be a church, a sunrise, a quilt lying crumpled on a bed with snow outside the window... Words flash quickly past, things likes, “warmth”, “peace”, “comfort”, “home”... There’s classical music playing, too, something comforting and homey with a piano. Then it suddenly cuts off, and the final image is a dark silhouette, looking at a lit house window in the distance. “Blow out the candle,” the program prompts. Kevin does. “Stretch your hand over the water and speak to the heat. Think about what you just saw and how it made you feel, and ask it to come back. Repeat these words...” The program plays a recording to him, and he closes his eyes, remembering the images. His palm starts to itch, but he resists the urge to scratch, and concentrates.

Kate and Charlie laugh and clap, and Kevin opens his eyes. What’s in the bowl isn’t exactly ice, more like an icy sludge. 

“Huh,” he says skeptically.

“Hey, you just bypassed about three years of training. I’m calling that a win,” Kate tells him.

“High five for being awesome?” Charlie suggests, and they slap palms.

Kevin holds his hand up too, more as a joke than anything else, but they immediately turn and include him. Kate and Charlie really are awesome.

******************************************

Lys still hasn’t made it into the 20th century, but Rob’s got a TV in his room. And more importantly, video games.

“No, seriously, man,” Rob is saying, “you have to come to the solstice ceremony. You’d be a chick magnet. I can bask in your reflected glow.”

Kevin has to hit pause. “Are we in the same universe?”

Rob laughs. “For us, knowledge is literally power. The nerd is king. But nobody’s ever even talked to a demon. You’ve actually been out there, done things, seen things...”

“You make that sound so much better than it was,” Kevin snorts.

Rob shrugs. “I’m just saying. In comparison, you’re a badass.”

Kevin’s not buying it. But it might be interesting to see the ceremony, not to mention talk to some new people.

“Okay, I’ll come.”

“Cool. My parents are coming into town, so I’ll have to spend some time with them, but don’t worry, I’ll introduce you to some people.” Rob unpauses the game without warning.

“Hey!” Kevin cries, turning back to more pressing matters.

******************************************

Dean and Cas roll into town the day before the solstice ceremony. Kevin’s reading in the little library off the front hall when he hears the Impala pull up. As he marks his place in the book, Sam and Lys come down the hall, nonchalant expressions on their faces like they totally weren’t looking out for the guys. Kevin smiles to himself. 

Lys waits until they knock to open the door. Kevin’s looking at her back, but he can hear the grin in her voice as she says, “You two sure took your sweet damn time.”

“Yeah, yeah, I missed you too,” Dean says, pushing past her into the hallway.

Sam slaps his brother on the shoulder in what’s probably his awkward dude way of saying “I missed you.” But it doesn’t go over well. Dean flinches hard before forcing a grin back onto his face.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asks. 

Lys is more direct, jerking the shoulder of his jacket down and demanding, “Show me.”

“Just picked up a little scratch on the way, that’s all,” Dean says, but he rolls up his sleeve to prove it. There’s a shiny patch of skin that’s still pink. It really does look minor. Sam relaxes along with Kevin, but Lys folds her arms and looks sternly at Cas.

“Regeneration? Seriously? That’s a risky spell.”

“The injury was severe enough to warrant it,” Cas replies.

“All patched up, Sammy. Just a little sore. Lys, you got a room in mind for us or can we just crash anywhere?” Dean is already heading up the stairs.

“Whatever,” Lys shrugs. 

“Okay. You comin’, Cas?”

He answers by following Dean up the stairs. At the first landing, Dean throws an arm around his shoulders, and mutters something that makes Cas laugh. 

When they’re gone, Sam steps close to Lys with a serious look. Kevin actually meant to get up and say hi, but no one noticed him, and now he holds still.

“Is he really fine?” Sam asks, keeping his voice low.

Lys pauses, then shrugs. “Probably. It’s dangerous, but Cas has some serious skills. And I don’t think he’d play around with Dean’s health.”

“I guess not,” Sam says doubtfully.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll keep an eye on them, and if they get stupid, we’ll call them on their shit,” Lys assures him.

“How did I turn into the responsible adult?” Sam asks, shaking his head, but there’s a little smile on his face.

“It’s a shitty job, but someone’s gotta do it,” Lys says, sounding perversely cheerful. “Speaking of which, I have administrative crap to do. Get Rob to watch your hex bags while they simmer. He knows what to do.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Lys waits until Sam is gone, then turns and looks straight at Kevin. Keeping her voice down, she says, “I mean that. Everything is gonna be fine. I say so.”

Kevin holds up his hands to signal surrender, and she marches off on her own business. 

******************************************

The morning of the solstice ceremony, Kevin comes down to discover Dean has commandeered the kitchen. Or actually, from the looks of it, Lys has gratefully surrendered it to him. There’s an absurd amount of bacon and eggs on the table, and an even more absurd amount on Dean’s plate.

“Your poor arteries,” Sam says, reaching for some toast.

“This is man food, princess, I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Dean answers, shoveling another bite into his mouth without looking up. His arm accidentally-on-purpose jostles Sam, and he has to grab quickly to keep his plate from smashing. 

“You’re such a jerk,” he sighs, trying to look angry.

Dean finally glances up. “Bitch,” he answers, giving him a cocky bastard grin. 

While they’re distracted, Kevin quickly scoops some food onto his own plate. He knows from experience those giants eat it all unless he moves fast.

***************************************

That afternoon, Kevin stands in front of the bathroom mirror, tying a red tie on himself. The color wasn’t optional. Kate took it upon herself mastermind everyone’s outfits for the solstice. “The ‘battle’ on the night of the solstice is between the Oak King and the Holly King. In winter, mistletoe stands for oak - it grows on oak - and its berries are white. Holly’s are red. You gotta wear the team color,” she’d said. Kevin doesn’t mind. He doesn’t exactly have a strong opinion on fashion. 

After a quick once-over to make sure he’s presentable, he heads downstairs. Rob is on the landing, struggling into - or maybe out of - his suit jacket.

“This fucking sucks,” he mutters. “I hate suits.” Eyeing Kevin, he adds, “And we look the same, like it’s a uniform. It’s creepy.”

Kevin shrugs. “I’m used to it. I used to wear a uniform all the time.” Actually, he kind of likes it. It makes him feel... put together. Like somebody who knows what he’s doing in life. 

Kevin turns from his friend to look down into the hallway below, and pauses. Kate is standing at the bottom of the stairs, wearing a tight red dress. Lesbian, he reminds himself. You’re overreacting because you haven’t kissed a girl since... you know what, let’s not even think about how long. The point is, you really have got to move out of the bunker.

Then Charlie steps into view, sliding an arm around her waist, and Kevin realizes that his jealousy is bigger and less specific than that. He doesn’t want Kate, he doesn’t even really want a hot girlfriend, though that would be nice. Mostly, though, he just wants to smile like Charlie is right now.

Next to him, Rob whines, “How come Charlie gets to wear green?”

“Because it’s so much prettier with her coloring,” Kate says, looking appraisingly at them as they come down the stairs. She nods - they pass muster - then leans in and hisses, “Listen, Lys is in a dress. It took me seven years to make that happen, and if you make any funny comments about it and ruin it for me now, I swear I will curse you with the worst case of herpes you’ve ever seen.”

Rob shakes his head. “Why do you even care?”

“Because,” Kate says, obviously deliberately raising her voice, “she’s the motherfucking queen of the dark side, and she needs to represent, which she can’t do if she’s dressed like Hillary Clinton.” 

“Hey! I’ve never looked that bad!” Lys shouts from the next room, almost drowned out by Dean’s laughter.

Kevin trails into the library after the rest of them, trying to get a good look at Lys from the back, before she can read his face. He doesn’t want to get in trouble if he has to laugh. 

“Kevin!” Damn. “Get over here and get your mark.”

Lys is covered from throat to wrists to ankles in the color of old blood. Her heavy iron necklace and bracelets look like matte black lace, no sparkle in sight. There’s black around her eyes and on her nails, and a dark red color on her lips that makes her look a little cruel. He’s pulled all-nighters with Lys, Kevin reminds himself. He’s heard her bitch out everyone in striking distance, and she’s still never done anything to hurt anyone - well, except for the torture spell that one time... No, Kevin tells himself firmly, Lys is not a wicked witch. She just looks exactly like one.

While Lys takes a Sharpie and writes her sigil on his hand, he absentmindedly reads the German engraved on one of her bracelets. “I traded gold for iron...”

“Well?” Lys says softly to him, amused. “Do I look dark enough?”

He nods. It doesn’t make sense. A little red fabric and some twisty black metal shouldn’t be this intimidating. 

“It’s the solstice,” she explains. “Right now, I’m only mostly me. I’m also an avatar for something bigger. Almost too big. It’s a little dangerous at the moment. But there’s good news,” she says, holding up her hand so he can see the gold ring she’s wearing. There’s a black enamel skeleton on it. She slips it off and flips it to him, and he reads the Latin scratched into the inside. Memento mori. Remember, you must die.

When he looks up, Lys has already moved on to scribbling on Sam’s hand, still talking cheerfully. “And for once, I thought I’d go out in style... Since we’re already making a statement, might as well make it a big one.”

Sam looks a little concerned. “You know you don’t really have to claim me. I don’t want to make trouble for you.”

 “You’re about six months too late for that,” Lys tells him. “No, witches think in symbols. If we ever expect them to trust hunters, I have to set the precedent. I can deal with the controversy.”

As Sam nods, Kevin holds the ring back out to Lys. “Keep it,” Lys shrugs. In a way it’s a sweet gesture, but the ring is creepy. Kevin slides it onto a finger, trying not to look at the skull grinning up at him. Like he needed another reminder of death.

***********************************

Rob’s parents are hilarious. What really makes it great is how much Rob squirms as they gush with pride about him.

“And looking back, he was always an intuitive child... I think in a past life he was-”

“Hey, okay, guys, I promised Kevin I’d introduce him to some people. Why don’t you go get a drink or something,” Rob finally breaks in. When they’re out of earshot, he heaves a sigh of relief. “This is humiliating. They’re way too crunchy for this crowd. If they could protect themselves I’d keep them away, but they can’t. I need to claim them, just in case.”

“Don’t take them for granted,” Kevin says wistfully. 

There’s an awkward moment. Rob clears his throat. “Listen... I’m sure one of us would claim you, it’s just... I mean, two people is already a lot for me to handle...”

“And Cas is gonna focus on Dean, and Kate on Charlie. I get it. It’s okay.” Rob nods, still looking sorry for him. “No, seriously. I’m not going to say it doesn’t sound nice to have that protection, but I’ve gotten this far without it.” 

It’s just something you say, but as it leaves his mouth, Kevin realizes it’s true. Life is hard; help is good. But if he can’t get any, well - then he’ll take care of himself.

Rob’s looking off into the distance, where Sam and Lys are standing by the stairs. “I guess Lys could handle two people, but...”

Kevin shakes his head. “No, no, Sam is a lightning rod for trouble.” 

They watch one of the younger men in the room approach Lys and shake her hand. She makes a hand movement toward Sam, obviously introducing him, and the guy hesitates for a minute before caving under Lys’ glare. Sam shakes his hand without smiling, and the guy quickly moves off again, back to a group of people giving the two some serious side-eye.

“And Lys looks like she’s pretty good at making enemies too,” he tells Rob. “She might need her energy.”

“Oh, sooner or later, I’m sure,” Rob shrugs.

“That doesn’t freak you out?”

A gleam comes into Rob’s eyes as he explains. “No, that’s the nature of the world. Look, tonight I’m the new Holly King. If I didn’t lose, there’d be too much of our kind of power in the world. So my ass has got to be kicked. But in six months, I’ll be back with a vengeance. People talk a lot about balance like it’s some perfect even mixture you can make and always keep, but actually, we need this. The scales need to keep tipping, that's where the power is.”

“I’ll take your word for it. So who am I supposed to meet?”

*********************************

“Oh my God. Seriously? A real demon?”

Look up, Kevin, he tells himself, make eye contact, or she’ll think you’re weird. He glances at her face, shrugs and nods. She hugs herself like she’s chilled by the thought.

Kevin was not the smoothest with the girls in high school. Years of basement living haven’t improved his game, but incredibly, Rob was right. This girl is way out of his league, but she just keeps talking to him.

“So what brings you here?” she asks.

“Oh, um, Lys asked me to give some lectures. Just, you know, on the ancient prophecies I’ve read and stuff.”

Something in her tone brightens, and Kevin recognizes a nerd getting close to their subject. “Oh, really? I’m writing my dissertation on ancient Egyptian magical texts. I mean, it’s not like you, I have to read them in translation, of course, but there’s something about the words...”

Surprised, Kevin nods. “I know what you mean. I almost brought the Egyptian prophecies I have, actually. According to Lys, they’re not ones you have in general circulation, so I was going to do a translation later this year.”

“You’re kidding me! I would have loved to take a look at that before my deadline.”

“Well, I can get you the texts. And, and I mean - I could read them for you, if you wanted...”

“That would be amazing! Here, lemme give you my number.” She punches it into his phone, and as she hands it back, she smiles again and touches his arm. “Promise you’ll call me.”

Kevin smiles back and meets her eyes. “I definitely will.”

******************************

At midnight, Kevin stands with his friends and listens to Rob, as the Holly King, demand his loyalty. Behind him, Lys stands ramrod straight, and for a minute, staring at her, Kevin turns to ice. 

Rob falls with a half-smile on his face, a willing sacrifice, and feeling rushes back into Kevin like warmth into his frozen fingers. He’s no witch, he couldn’t draw any strength from this ritual, but maybe he did anyway. He feels - not unbeatable. But capable. Ready.

All around him, spells are being cast. Rob has his hands on each of his parents’ shoulders, smiling proudly. Cas has one palm against Dean’s chest, with one of Dean’s hands over it, like he’s holding him there. Kate and Charlie are facing each other, swinging linked hands like middle schoolers. Even Lys, exhausted, hair falling into her face, is leaning heavily on one of Sam’s arms and defiantly repeating the same spell as the others. “I claim this man...”

Kevin watches his friends as they promise to protect each other. Maybe one day he’ll be someone’s first priority again. He would love that. But for now - it’s okay, it really is. Even without a ritual, he knows his friends will be there if he really needs them. Besides, he’s nobody’s pawn, not anymore. He can take care of himself. Almost as a joke, he looks down at his hand, spreads it wide, and mutters, “I claim me.”

Then Kevin turns his hand over, and the enamel skeleton on Lys’ ring grins up at him, reminding him not to get too cocky. There are plenty of things out to get him and his friends. The scale tips back the other way. Remember, you must die.

Kevin smiles back down at the ring, knowing everyone is too busy to see him acting crazy. “Yeah,” he tells it. “Eventually. But not anytime soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1-Lys is wearing Berlin iron jewelry. When under threat by Napoleon, the fine ladies of the area gave their gold and jewels for the war effort, and received finely worked iron instead. Hence, "I traded gold for iron." It also became popular as mourning jewelry. Fancy, but associated with duty, renunciation, battle and death - it seemed appropriate.
> 
> 2-Kevin has no idea, but Lys is making a pretty big gesture by giving him her ring. They were relatively popular in the early 18th century, so she's just given him a valuable antique. It can be used as mourning jewelry, but it also harks back to the medieval tradition of graphically showing death to remind you to keep your mind on higher things.

**Author's Note:**

> Alice Young is the name of the first witch executed in the American colonies - Hartford, Connecticut, 1647.


End file.
